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MIRACLES 



T, ■ 



PAST AND PRESENT 



BY 



WILLIAM MOUNTFORD 



1 1 




BOSTON 

FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. 

1870 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

WILLIAM MOUNTFORD, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



The L 






University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 



PREFACE. 

\ 

THE subject of the Supernatural has engaged my 
attention, as a student, during many years. It 
grew upon me as to importance, and deepened as to 
interest, while I was at Eome, where, like St. Paul, 
I dwelt two years in my own hired house. This 
book, which I offer to the public, was written simply 
because the times seemed to be asking for some such 
work. And, as nobody else was answering to the call 
of the times, it occurred to me suddenly, one morning, 
some sixteen months ago, that perhaps I might myself 
be not quite clear of the summons. Doubtless a bet- 
ter man than I am was called upon, and a better book 
was asked for than what I have to offer. I confess 
that I feel so. And let this acknowledgment be 
accepted as an apology for such a venture as this is 
upon such a theme. 

Some persons have wondered that I should have 
attempted to strengthen my argument by availing 
myself of the phenomena of Spiritualism as evi- 
dence of there being about us a sphere of life alto- 
gether different from this of nature, and for which 
science has no methods nor instruments, and for 
which, therefore, it should not have even one word 
of denial, or even of doubt. Those phenomena may 
be called ridiculous, or they may be called demoniac ; 



iv PREFACE. 

but at least and certainly they are cosmical. And, 
indeed, if I had ignored the subject of Spiritualism 
because of its being unpopular, how could I ever have 
borne afterwards to think of Henry More, or of Eich- 
ard Baxter, or of John Wesley, or his dear brother 
Charles ? Or how could I ever again have consulted 
Ealph Cudworth, as to the Intellectual System of the 
Universe ? Or how could I have remembered, thence- 
forth, without shame, the Christian writers from Her- 
nias to Augustine ? Or how could I have endured a 
life among books, when all those, with the greater 
names, would have seemed to be saying, with one 
voice, " Thou shalt not bear false witness." 

Perhaps I ought to say that I sympathize with the 
early Christians and their faith as to the Spirit, rather 
than with anything which I may have seen or heard 
in Borne, at Whitsuntide. St. Chrysostom says, in 
one of his homilies, delivered at Constantinople, prob- 
ably towards the end of the fourth century, that there 
had been used to be a pause, during the service in the 
church, wherein for persons to rise, who were moved 
by the Spirit, and that that space had been closed, 
almost within his own time. Also after saying that 
many of the miraculous gifts of the early Church had 
been withdrawn, he says : " And among the rest, the 
gift of prayer, which was then distinguished by the 
name of the Spirit. And he that had this gift prayed 
for the whole congregation. Upon which account 
the apostle gives the name of the Spirit, both to this 
gift and to the soul that was endowed with it, who 
made intercession with groanings unto God, asking 
of God such things as were of general use and ad- 



PREFACE. V 

vantage to the whole congregation ; the image and 
symbol of which now is the deacon, who offers up 
prayer for the people." Into that customary ancient 
place in the service, that deacon ought never perhaps 
to have been intruded. For even when there was in 
it nothing but silence, it was a place wherein for peo- 
ple to wonder, and to feel conscious of there having 
been something lost or suspended, as between the 
Church and its invisible Head. 

However, that solemn significant pause, which 
anciently there was in the public services of the 
Church, would not have been endured in this present 
century. Of a certain period in the history of the 
Israelites, it is written that, in those days, " There 
was no open vision." But than the frankness of such 
a statement as that, spiritually, there is nothing which 
is more foreign to the world as it now is ; for the 
world to-day thinks that, on account of its high civil- 
ization, the universe must surely be pledged to its sup- 
port, in every way which is possible. And it thinks, 
also, that never could any age previously have been as 
open to light from every quarter as this present time 
is. However, the way, according to Chrysostom, in 
which the Church was closed against the Spirit, during 
the services on the Lord's day, should hint for us that 
there may have been also many other ways, by which 
Christians may have been discouraged from waiting on 
God, for the Spirit. 

Earlier in the Church than Chrysostom, by some 
four or five generations, was Origen, and he wrote 
that " all who can say truly that they have risen with 
Christ, and been seated with him in the kingdom of 



VI PREFACE. 

heaven, live always in Pentecostal days." And as to 
public worship, very noteworthy is his opinion ; for he 
says that the special advantage of public worship is, 
that individuals are thereby in communion with those 
who worship in the Spirit, and in the presence of the 
Lord and the holy angels; and he adds, "and as I 
think also of the spirits of the departed." That is a 
thought akin to the age, wherein originated the phrase 
of " the communion of saints." 

The Church of the Future will be, of course, in some 
degree, a continuation of the Past ; but it will specially 
be, earlier or later, a revival of the early Church, at its 
best. And this book has been written and is pub- 
lished under the persuasion that the voice of the early 
Church is as distinctly audible to-day as it ever was ; 
and that, as far merely as the miraculous is concerned, 
the Scriptures, when fairly considered, at this present 
time, are as credible as ever they were. 

W. M. 

Boston, February 22, 1870. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

The Anti-Supernaturalism of the Present Age . . 1 

Science and the Supernatural 38 

Miracles and Doctrine 71 

Miracles and the Believing Spirit .... 90 - 
The Scriptures and Pneumatology . . . .110 

Miracles and Science 120 

The Spirit and the Prophets thereof . . . .131 

Anti-Supernatural Misunderstandings . . . 144 

The Last Ecstatic 152 

Matter and Spirit 166 

The Outburst of Spiritualism 184 

Thoughts on Spiritualism 205 

A Miracle defined 224 

Miracles as Signs ....... 249 

Miracles and the Creative Spirit 262 

Miracles and Human Nature 285 

Miracles and Pneumatology 309 



V1U CONTENTS. 

The Spirit and the Old Testament ♦ 340 

The Old Testament and the New 382 

The Spirit 399 

Jesus and the Spirit . . . # . . 430 

Jesus and the Eesurrection 452 

The Church and the Spirit 478 



Index to Texts quoted 505 

Index of Subjects 509 



MIRACLES PAST AND PRESENT. 



THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM OF THE 
PRESENT AGE. 

IT is proposed to consider the subject of miracles as 
connected with Christianity. And perhaps than 
this there is no religious topic which has been more 
variously and strangely treated, during the last century. 
And this is saying a great deal. For how has it fared 
with Christianity, and even at the hands of those, some- 
times, by whom it has been accounted as the Tree of 
Life ? Often, among other anomalous doings, it has 
been treated as though a gardener should take up a 
tree and turn it about, to humor every change of wind 
Upon it ; and as though, to prove it to be a living thing, 
he should lay bare its roots for every questioner, and 
even paint them, to make them more seemly. 

Miracles are the possibilities of a miracle-bearing 
tree ; but commonly they are regarded as though they 
were some arbitrary manufacture. In the New Testa- 
ment they are simply called " signs and wonders " ; 
but in this age, among both believers and unbelievers, 
it is agreed that they are suspensions of the laws of na- 
ture, or else are nothing. Miracles presuppose the ex- 
istence of a spiritual world containing spiritual agents 
and spiritual forces ; with laws peculiar to it, and with 
1 A 



2 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

some laws also capable of intertwining and inosculat- 
ing with some of the laws of man's nature and of the 
material world. And yet often, by even the advocates 
of their reality, miracles are argued wholly and simply 
as material occurrences, and quite apart from the phi- 
losophy of their nature, and, indeed, as though there 
were really no such philosophy known. And this is 
because of the spirit of the age, which is so strong in 
us all. For it is no matter what a man may be, 
whether philosopher, theologian, or anything else, al- 
most inevitably in some way or other, the spirit of 
the age will have its say through him, and pervert, if 
not quench, his meaning. 

No doubt, things have often been credited as mirac- 
ulous which were no miracles at all. But the precise 
opposite of credulity is not wisdom, always. And if 
it be said that it is only at Naples that the blood of 
St. Januarius will liquefy, it may be answered that 
there has also been such a place as that in it, nei- 
ther would " they be persuaded, though one rose from 
the dead." And to-day there are eminent places, 
where men hold that neither their own eyes, nor the 
eyes of all other persons, are to be trusted for a mira- 
cle, or, as they would say, for anything different from 
the laws of nature. But, with all their scepticism, 
these sceptics do not remember that a law of nature 
may be one thing, and their notion of that law be 
something else, or something a little different. But, 
indeed, when incredulity becomes as intense as that, it 
is self-confounded, self-confuted, even though it should 
be in regard to such a miracle as that which happened, 
when the axe-head fell into the water, and Elisha " cut 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 3 

down a stick and cast it in thither, and the iron did 
swim." For, if a man cannot trust his eyes and ears, 
how can he rely on his doubts ? And how does he 
know but doubting his senses may be an unworthy, 
untrustworthy act, and even may, perhaps, be a mere 
nervous boiling ? And how should even a materialist 

Co O 

trust the wisdom which has been filtered for him, as he 
thinks, from outside, through his eyes and ears, if he 
cannot trust his eyes and ears themselves ? But, in 
the spirit of his times or neighborhood, a man will 
think and hold what, under other influences, would 
have been for him only a speculative, tentative posi- 
tion. And because of its being in us and of us, the 
spirit of the age is the last thing to be suspected, as 
vitiating sound judgment. 

It is in this spirit of the time to judge of everything 
by uniformity, whether as regards the world or man- 
kind. And so, from what he understands to be the 
uniformity of the laws of nature, a man of the time 
thinks himself competent to check the report of the 
past, and decide that there never could have been wa- 
ter changed into wine, or a demon exorcised, because 
at this present time water is never seen changing into 
wine, nor a demon known to be dispossessed of his cor- 
poral lodgings. And because of what he fancies must 
be the uniformity of human nature, this man of the 
time thinks, too, that from himself he knows of every- 
body else, as to what they can have seen or cannot 
have seen ; can have heard or cannot have heard ; can 
have felt or cannot have felt ; and in the same way, as 
differing from himself, he is certain that in the past 
they must all have been loose thinkers ; and not the 



4 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

Jews only, but the Greeks and Eomans too, and even 
Socrates and Plato, because of their having reasoned 
about things which he himself has never met with, 
and which, if he did meet, he would never believe 
his own eyes about. 

It is by availing himself of this temper of the times 
that largely Ernest Eenan gets his strength as a con- 
troversialist ; for what he has to say on the subject 
of miracles would have been but feeble talk anywhere, 
one or two hundred years ago, and would sound but 
inanely even to-day, in such regions as are clear away 
from the influence of Paris and London. " A miracle 
is not to be regarded, because it never could have hap- 
pened; and because even if, perchance, it had hap- 
pened, there never could have been any people who 
could have been believed about it." This, in form, is 
the argument of Eenan. But, of course, it is good only 
for people of that way of thinking, only for persons 
sensitive to the spirit of the age, and who are ready to 
add, without another word, "And so I think, because 
so I am sure." 

The following quotation is from the introductory 
chapter to " The Apostles," by Ernest Eenan : " The 
first twelve chapters of the Acts are a tissue of mira- 
cles. It is an absolute rule in criticism to deny a 
place in history to narratives of miraculous circum- 
stances ; nor is this owing to a metaphysical system, 
for it is simply the dictation of observation. Such 
facts have never been really proved. All the pretended 
miracles near enough to be examined are referable to 
illusion or imposture. If a single miracle had ever 
been proved, we could not reject in a mass all those of 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 5 

ancient history ; for, admitting that very many of these 
last were false, we might still believe that some of 
them were true. But it is not so. Discussion and 
examination are fatal to miracles. Are we not, then, 
authorized in believing that those miracles which date 
many centuries back, and regarding which there are 
no means of forming a contradictory debate, are also 
without reality ? In other words, miracles only exist 
when people believe in them. The supernatural is but 
another word for faith. Catholicism, in maintaining 
that it yet possesses miraculous power, subjects itself 
to the influence of this law. The miracles of which it 
boasts never occur where they would be most effective. 
Why should not such a convincing proof be brought 
more prominently forward ? A miracle at Paris, for 
instance, before experienced savans, would put an end 
to all doubt. But, alas ! such a thing never happens." 
But, now, oracular though this might be, judged by the 
manner in which it has been bowed to, what is there 
in it all more than the mere sceptical spirit of the 
age ? What does it do more than simply tickle the 
humor of the time ? Psychologically, it is a curious 
passage, because the sweep of its intention is so wide ; 
while the wording of it is so like the unconscious, in- 
nocent expression of a child. It is as though a boy, 
as the easier way of settling with a problem in mathe- 
matics, should say : " There is nothing in it. There 
never w r as anything learned from that direction. 
my master, all the best boys have looked at it, and say 
that there is nothing in it, — nothing at all. And so, 
now, how can there be ? And, please, even if it be 
true, it cannot really be unless we let it be." But 



6 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

here it may be asked, whether it is likely that Ernest 
Kenan, as a boy, ever talked in that manner ; and to 
this it may be answered, that it is very unlikely, con- 
sidering that he was born in Brittany. And it is just 
as unlikely, too, that he could ever have written the 
preceding quotation from one of his works, but for his 
education, direct and indirect. For he was born in 
Brittany, a country of simple, fervent, unquestioning 
faith as to the Church. Thence he was carried to Par- 
is, and placed in a primary theological school, whence 
he was passed on to a similar school elsewhere. Hav- 
ing finished with the latter school, he became a resident 
in the Seminary of St. Sulpice, which, indeed, inside, 
is wholly ordered by members of the Society of Jesus, 
but on the outside is pressed upon by the light, sceptical, 
and anti-Christian air of Paris. Ernest Eenan had been 
brought up like a child of the Middle Ages, and then 
found himself, as a young man, where, with a few steps 
out of doors, he was in the atmosphere of Paris and 
under the influence of the Sorbonne. And now, with 
all this, was it not natural that Eenan should have 
become a Eationalistic author instead of a Catholic 
priest ? And because of his being a simple, earnest, 
intellectual man, was it not all the more natural still, 
that, by contrast with the air of St. Sulpice, he should 
mistake for the spirit of truth itself what was but the 
spirit of the age manifesting itself through a highly 
educated class, in a city singularly self-centred and 
self-sufficient ? 

But, says the critic here criticised, " A miracle at 
Paris before experienced savans /" Elsewhere, too, he 
explains more exactly what would suit him as to a 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 7 

miracle ; that it should be wrought under conditions as 
to time and place, in a hall, and before a commission 
of physiologists, chemists, physicians, and critics ; and 
that when it had been done once, it should, on request, 
be repeated. And no doubt, to the writer, this ap- 
peared to be a very fair way of dealing with miraculous 
pretensions ; and no doubt, too, of his most emphatic 
opponents, there are many to whom, in their secret 
thought, it would be a puzzle, if such a proposition had 
been made to Jesus at Jerusalem, why it should not 
have been accepted at once for the market-place, or 
the court of the temple. For Kenan is simply strong 
in that way of looking at things, which is characteris- 
tic of this present age, and which commonly is called 
sceptical, but which, also, sometimes is called practical 
and even business-like. Not jocosely, but in all seri- 
ousness, every now and then are put forth and read in- 
vitations to the miraculous such as that which Ernest 
Kenan makes. One man writes in abstract, scientific 
terms, and another in plain English ; but both one and 
the other mean the same thing. " Let miracles come 
to me in my study, and show themselves inside of my 
crucible, w T hile my friends are all standing round, and 
at the moment exactly when it shall be said that 
we are all ready, and then I will believe ; though of 
course, even then, I should not be absolutely forced to, 
but still I should, I think. And now what do you 
say to that ? " And there really is nothing to say to it. 
Martin Luther, indeed, said once what probably he 
would have remarked again, if he had heard this scien- 
tific, common-sense proposal, that for certain, some- 
times, over some of his creatures God Almighty must 
laugh. 



8 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

But now, as to miracles, it is not pretended that 
they are absolutely at the ordering of any man as to 
time and place. But, indeed, is it so that science treats 
a subject, even less foreign to its own domain than 
miracles ? 

Are earthquakes, as reports, accounted incredible, as 
not occurring at a time and a place known beforehand, 
and submissive to the directions of men with clocks 
and spirit-levels, and with magnetic and other ma- 
chines all ready for use ? And, indeed, a miracle com- 
ing to order would scarcely be a miracle. For, coming 
to order patiently, punctually, and as a scientific cer- 
tainty, it would by that very fact have parted probably 
with something essential to its nature as commonly 
understood. 

But really a Kamtschatkan, unmitigated and sim- 
ple, arguing with Ernest Eenan on Sanscrit, could not 
show himself more insensible as to the laws of philol- 
ogy than Benan shows himself on the subject of mir- 
acles ; for he is utterly unconscious, apparently, of 
there being any philosophy connected with them, and 
of there being laws as to miracles, known more or less 
by some men in all ages, and as certain as gravitation. 

But it may be asked how this can be, Benan being a 
very sensible writer. And so a man may write well 
on geometry, and yet show himself to be very stolid 
as to poetry, and even also as to those thoughts akin 
to the spiritual universe, which are suggested by the 
strange properties of numbers, or which come in upon 
the mind, like corollaries on the demonstration of cer- 
tain problems. Thus, even by his constitution, Benan 
may have a strong, keen, serviceable, excellent sense 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 9 

of the life which Jesus lived as other men live, and 
yet be utterly insensible to the life of Jesus the Christ, 
as fed by the Spirit, and going forth in miracles, and 
incapable of seeing corruption. But, indeed, for his 
manner of writing the spirit of his age abundantly ac- 
counts, just as it accounts for some of the more fervent 
of his admirers, who like in his writings what is weak- 
est, as much as they do what is best. 

Of what use, it is asked, can miracles ever have been 
among people not fit to be believed about them, such 
as were the people of old time and the people of the 
Middle Ages, and such as are all the people of the 
provinces of France, and men of the people and men 
of the world everywhere ? Tor, as Eenan says, neither 
men of the world nor men of the people are " capable 
of establishing the miraculous character of an act." 
An act is what he says, any act, any miraculous act, 
and not merely some very recondite thing hard to no- 
tice. This is one of those general statements which 
often pass unchallenged, because nobody thinks that 
they can mean him ; but it is not, therefore, the less 
mischievous. Perhaps there is not a man of the world 
who allows this opinion, as he reads it, but thinks, 
though he is no physician and has never been publicly 
recognized as critic, chemist, or physiologist, that some- 
how, certainly, he himself must have science and art 
enough, for being one of Eenan's judges of the miracu- 
lous, and must have been intended, indeed, to be includ- 
ed amongst them. Physicians, physiologists, men of 
criticism and chemistry, men of science, the only com- 
petent judges as to miracles ! For some conceivable 
miracles they might be ; but for some others detective 
1* 



10 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

policemen would be far better witnesses. And, for still 
some other miracles, that men of the world, as judges, 
are inferior to chemists, — this is a sentiment which 
can come only from scientific folly, or from much learn- 
ing gone mad. As to whether the true magnetic pole 
could be made to swerve for a moment in the heavens, 
professional men would be the better and perhaps the 
only proper judges. But men of the people and men 
of the world are as good judges as men of science on 
a miracle like this, which occurred in the wilderness : 
" His disciples say unto him, Whence should we have 
so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a 
multitude ? And Jesus saith unto them, How many 
loaves have ye ? And they said, Seven, and a few little 
fishes. And he commanded the multitude to sit down 
on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and the 
fishes, and gave thanks and break them, and gave to 
his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And 
they did all eat and were filled ; and they took up of 
the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. And 
they that did eat were five thousand men, beside wo- 
men and children." 

But now what a want of taste and feeling it seems 
not to pause here for a little while, after such a glimpse 
into Galilee at that wonderful time. But it is not 
permitted, as the world now is, to those who know it 
theologically. For in comes, on the mind, the recol- 
lection of David F. Strauss, the famous writer on the 
Gospels, who says that he himself cannot believe in a 
miracle until he has had a solution of the philosophi- 
cal views which he entertains against the possibility 
of such a thing. So that with him, even seeing would 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 11 

not be believing, unless, by good luck, there were some 
sophist standing by, more cunning than himself, who 
could unloose for him, in his mind, the knots of his 
own tying. Any man, down in the depths of learning, 
or up on the heights of science, in a difficulty of that 
kind, is to be pitied, because of the pains which he must 
have taken before he could have got there in his senses. 
But now for David F. Strauss himself pity is not the 
word, but sympathy. And the sympathy to be felt for 
him is profound, and as though for a pioneer in the 
grand advance of civilization, who had got bewildered 
in a thicket, and at whose position only they can laugh 
who cannot even faintly conjecture what it is to try 
a step forwards in theology under religious responsi- 
bility. Still, however, it is a certainty that such an 
avowal as that which Strauss makes of himself, is the 
self-exposure of " philosophy falsely so called." 

And now let us consider the arguments against the 
supernatural from the uniformity of human nature. 
At present almost everybody feels the force of it more 
or less, and not the less unduly often because uncon- 
sciously. But, as a dogmatic position, it is commonly 
assumed by persons belonging to two very different 
classes, — by studious, scholarly men, and by people 
who call themselves self-made men, and who boast 
themselves of having been sharpened by collisions 
with their fellows. Human nature, it is supposed, is 
everywhere and always the same, and as uniform as a 
law of nature ; so as that everybody knows of him- 
self whether a spirit has ever been seen anywhere, or 
a vision ever been had, or a miraculous cure ever been 
experienced. Now certainly human nature is every- 



12 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

where human. But then what is this humanity? 
For, before beginning to deny from it as a ground, it 
should be absolutely certain how far the ground reach- 
es. Plainly, we are not all the equals of Plato, or Sol- 
omon, or Newton. And if, now and then, individuals 
have proclaimed themselves sensitive to a world of 
spirit, it would hardly seem to be a greater variation 
in human nature than what is common in every city, 
where one man wallows in the mire of sensuality, 
while another feeds on fruits ripened on the topmost 
boughs of the tree of knowledge. And certainly a seer 
does not vary from a Troglodyte more than Plato does ; 
and so why should he not be believed in, on good evi- 
dence as to his character ? 

But, indeed, for those who hold that man is body 
and spirit, why should it be incredible that there 
should be varieties of spiritual experience among men, 
considering that some men do nothing but live to the 
body, while others live earnestly to the spirit ? 

If there be a spirit in man, and a spirit with the 
powers of a spirit, why should it be reckoned a thing 
impossible, that it should make itself more distinctly 
felt in one man than another ? And why should it 
be beyond belief or expectation even that, now and 
then, there might be a person with whom some faculty 
of the spirit should be more than dormantly alive ? — 
the eye for spirits even, if any should be near ; the ear 
for more than mortal sounds ; and the spiritual under- 
standing for a prompting other than that of flesh and 
blood ? But the fact is that the anti-supernaturalism 
of our times is the result of thought akin to materi- 
alism ; and from this effect of materialism very few 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 13 

persons are wholly exempt. For even the partisans 
of a spiritual theology argue it commonly like material- 
ists, — argue it as though it were some field of nature, 
reaching out of sight, indeed, but to be pronounced 
upon, from familiar analogies. Even those who rank 
themselves farthest from the professors of materialism, 
show themselves to be inwardly affected by it, by 
their unwillingness to have spirit defined in any other 
way than negatively. They say that spirit is not sub- 
stance because matter is substantial ; that spirit can- 
not be known of by men because, though they may be 
spirits themselves, they can learn only through the five 
senses ; and that spirit cannot act upon matter be- 
cause it cannot touch it, from the want of some prop- 
erty in common with it. So that, for some fervent disci- 
ples of a spiritual philosophy, spirit is not much more 
than the indefinable. The universality of the materi- 
alism of the age is illustrated by the manner in which 
even immaterialists agree with their opposites on some 
most important points of denial and disbelief. Some 
of them talk reverentially of George Fox and his doc- 
trine and experience of the Spirit ; but they resolutely 
ignore all the signs and wonders in his history, which 
by Fox himself are ascribed to the Spirit. Others of 
them hold the writings of Jacob Boehme like oracles 
of spirituality, while they treat like an idle, unmeaning 
preface, the assertion prefixed to one of them, that it 
was not written out of his mind, but from thoughts 
which forced an utterance through him from the Spir- 
it. And still others of them affect Plotinus as a great 
spiritual teacher ; but they shut their eyes on the in- 
tercourse with spirits which he held, and on his expe- 
riences of the ecstatic state. 



14 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

A man may hold the creed of his sect or party ever 
so firmly, but yet largely his thought will be governed 
by what he can never quite escape from, — the spirit 
of his age. And narratives or doctrines of the super- 
natural, in a time like this, can be, at the best, only 
just not rejected. At present, in meditative stillness, 
spiritual perception may be attained ; but out in the 
world, almost it quite fails at once, from being stifled 
by the atmosphere of the world's common thought. 

True, thousands and tens of thousands of clergymen 
preach the supernatural, and millions of persons, week 
by week, sit and hear them. But this is not evidence 
of faith any more than the discords, deceits, and dis- 
content, the treacheries, sensualities, and blasphemies 
of Monday are proofs of what was preached and ac- 
quiesced in on Sunday. Perhaps nearly every learned 
and thoughtful clergyman might express himself in 
something like this manner : " I am one of His witness- 
es for these things. I see that they were so and are 
so. And yet, strange to say, I cannot preach as I feel ; 
or rather I cannot make my hearers feel what I wish 
to preach. And the sermon which I thought was full 
of the arrows of the Lord hits no one where I aim, and 
is indeed no more than the ' lovely song of one that 
hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instru- 
ment.' " And, more than that, the sermon does not 
sound like the same thing, even to himself. And the 
words which, while they were meditated in secret, 
were fraught with the Spirit, being uttered in public, 
do not reach the spiritual man, but only the ear of the 
natural man, and are powerless except as they may 
chance to be approved by the intellect testing them by 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 15 

logic, rhetoric, history, and some of the natural sensibil- 
ities. And the reason is very simple, for the atmos- 
phere of the world and of a worldly church is not that 
of a Christian study, with its windows opening towards 
Jerusalem. And even a preacher may be really " in 
the Spirit on the Lord's day"; but he must be very 
happily constituted if he does not find that, with cross- 
ing the street, on his way to the pulpit, the Spirit has 
been more or less quenched in him. And, from ex- 
changing looks with his hearers, he is conscious that he 
is not quite what he was while in the presence of the 
fathers, and in sympathy with Jeremy Taylor, and in 
fellowship with Baxter and Doddridge, and in the com- 
munion of the saints. Partly his rationalistic dogmas 
and forms of speech do not admit fully of either the 
doctrines or the utterance of the Spirit ; and partly, 
what utterance of the Spirit his words suffice for, often 
his hearers are not capable of receiving, because in 
them the sense of the supernatural is very commonly 
almost quite suspended ; and so " they seeing, see not ; 
and hearing, they hear not; neither do they under- 
stand." And with the people as well as the preacher 
this is not so much their fault as their misfortune, — 
the tendency of the time which they belong to, and 
which it is not possible to quite escape. And this 
tendency, this spirit of the age, is not of yesterday 
merely, but of previous ages. It is an effect of the 
manner, in which the souls of men have been stupefied 
by the astounding disclosures of science. It results, 
also, from the fact that the ordinary modes of religious 
administration are what have been persisted in, with- 
out the slightest modification, since the days when 



16 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

they were the agony of George Fox's soul, and the 
scorn of Bobert Barclay's logic ; and in part, also, it is 
a consequence of altered ways of life, the growth of 
luxury, the increasing subordination of the individual 
to the body politic, and the predominance of the pecu- 
liar influences of the city over those of the country. 

Perhaps never before has there been as much unbe- 
lief, innocent in its origin, as there is at present. In 
former ages widely prevalent unbelief was caused by 
moral corruption. But the peculiar scepticism of the 
present age is not as desperate as that. It is, not 
mainly of the hearf, and thus the issues of life are not 
thereby corrupted, as they otherwise might be. And 
so at present, in their inmost hearts, men have really 
more faith than they themselves know of. And often 
it is observed that, apparently, while sickness thins 
away the body, there is also a mental incrustation 
which gives way too, and through which the soul 
seems to look out with a sweet surprise, and a glad 
sense of the God who is nearer than was thought. If 
it may be so expressed, it is for the comfort of the 
strong more than even of the dying that faith at the 
present day needs to be strengthened. What general 
uneasiness there is theologically ! Every church is 
opposed to every other church, and yet also is divided 
against itself. And the same want of faith, or satisfy- 
ing conviction, is largely evident in individuals. Vast 
numbers simply acquiesce in their creeds, and tim- 
idly recoil from even learning about them. And how 
often it is to be seen, that if an individual tries to 
think for himself, he is at one time zealous for cere- 
monies, and at another time resolute against them, as 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 17 

embarrassing crutches ; and is a believer in mainly one 
article of his creed one year, and in another article an- 
other year. And from those hearts which best know 
themselves, what an unceasing prayer must be rising 
from closet to closet, from church to church, from town 
to town, all round the world, " Lord, I believe ; help 
thou mine unbelief " ! The unbelief which is specially 
of this age is so far from being atheistic that it even 
prays ; for such atheism as is possible now, is what 
really may be confuted within the range of the mind 
of a child. Indeed, the unbelief of our time is mainly 
anti-supernaturalism, or more precisely, perhaps, anti- 
spiritualism. It is not, however, a denial of the angels 
any more than of God. But exactly it denies that 
man, as a class of creatures occupying that particular 
place in the universe which is the kingdom of nature, 
is liable to be visited by any other creatures, whether 
higher or lower, not also denizens of nature. It denies, 
too, that there are any other avenues to the human 
mind than what the anatomist can indicate with his 
scalpel ; and, therefore, it denies that the human spirit 
is open to be acted upon by the Holy Ghost as in the 
early days of Christianity ; and denies, also, that men 
are ever approachable in any way, or for any purpose 
whatever, or ever so slightly by angel, spirit, or devil. 
The denial runs thus : " As to spirit, I have never seen 
it, and I will believe it when I have. And, what is 
more, I never have heard of any one worthy of belief 
who ever did see a spirit. When I am told about my 
head or my hand I know what is talked about ; but 
about spirit I know nothing, nor anybody else either ; 
and my common sense tells me the same thing. And 

B 



18 THE ANTT-SUPERNATURALISM 

that God has given me common sense I do know. I 
do not mean to say that we shall not live again ; but 
I mean to say that at present spirit is what my com- 
mon sense knows nothing about ; and I am for com- 
mon sense." True ; but uncommon things may re- 
quire an uncommon sense, or rather a sense which is 
too commonly fast asleep. For the purposes of the 
natural man which are common sense, the faculties of 
the natural man suffice ; but things which are of God, 
or which look towards him, are not so discerned. Says 
St. Paul, " Now we have received not the spirit of the 
world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might 
know the things which are freely given to us of God." 
Often, in the very arguments which they employ, 
persons writing in defence of the Christian miracles, 
evince their own latent anti-supernaturalism. Contin- 
ually, in theological works, miracles are defended as 
realities by those who have no perception whatever of 
spiritual laws, and no sense whatever of the miracu- 
lous. How much infected by materialism persons may 
be who fancy themselves to be very spiritual in their 
views, is shown in the attempt which frequently is 
made, to render miracles credible by analogy with 
Babbage's Calculating Machine. This wonderful ma- 
chine is said to work accurately through a long series 
of figures, till suddenly it throws up a number which 
is out of order, and which cannot be accounted for, but 
which, it is supposed, may possibly result from some 
undiscovered law of mathematics. And it is gravely 
suggested that, in obedience to some occult property, 
the great machine of nature has here and there, and es- 
pecially about Palestine, stopped its regularity for an 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 19 

instant, and thrown out a miracle, at a time foreor- 
dained in the making of the clockwork. Anything, 
rather than suppose the intervention of God, or angel, 
or spirit ! Anything rather than a miracle, as being 
out of the order of nature, even though really it should 
be in the order of Heaven ! A thousand miracles of 
the strangest origin may be brought in at the back- 
gate, if only they can be used for barring the front- 
door of the intellect, against admitting the possibility 
of signs and wonders having ever been fresh from 
Heaven, ever having been supernatural ; willed, that 
is to say, in the spiritual world, outside of nature, and 
at the very seasons respectively of their being shown. 

By certain professors of theology there has been 
lately published an explanation of the day of Pente- 
cost, as having been a day of misunderstanding among 
the frightened apostles, in consequence of there having 
been an earthquake, which they thought was a mighty 
rushing wind, in the house where they were sitting. 
And the speaking with other tongues, at which the 
foreigners were amazed, is argued to have been alto- 
gether a mistake, and in keeping with the impenetra- 
ble darkness plainly discernible in the ingenious but 
excusable manner in which the Acts of the Apostles 
are narrated, up to the day of Pentecost, from the 
resuscitation of Christianity, whenever and whatever 
that may have been. 

The operation of the Spirit by its gifts, as described 
by St. Paul, tests scriptural expositors very curiously. 
One says, virtually, that it means what it means, with- 
out attempting to realize it in any way. Another sees 
into not only the credibility, but also the philosophy, 



20 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

of the various gifts, and yet, as even Neander does, finds 
the gift of tongues to be unintelligible and improbable. 
And a third expositor teaches that the gifts of the 
Spirit are simply natural endowments ; that coveting 
earnestly the best gifts is merely attempting self-cul- 
ture ; and that by the gift of tongues is to be under- 
stood not a power for speaking languages, foreign or 
unknown, but the interjectional, broken utterance of a 
man choking with emotion. The spiritual blindness 
of the age is such, that often there is not much more 
light to be perceived in the Church than there is out 
of it. And everywhere, too, and in every section of 
the Church, are to be seen blind leaders of the blind ; 
and continually one or other of them looks up, and 
with authority says some such thing as that the gift of 
tongues means broken utterance, an inability to speak. 
The anti-supernaturalism of our time is shown, 
again, in the state of feeling which generally exists 
on prayer, the Holy Spirit, and everything else which 
supposes either that the spiritual world can open in 
upon the soul, or the soul open out on that. Of mod- 
ern treatises on the nature, operation, and effects of 
the Holy Ghost, the best which can be said is, as Cole- 
ridge expresses it, that they believe that they believe. 
They believe, indeed, but with a faith which has never 
realized itself. Why is it, that so rarely the scriptural 
doctrine of prayer is enforced, except by such men 
as preach everything which is w T ritten, and everything 
alike ? Why is it, that so commonly men pray by the 
way of duty merely, and with no sense of the Divine 
bosom to lean against ? Why is it, that so many good 
men pray only the prayer of self-recollection before 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 21 

God, and never the prayer of faith ? Why is it, 
that they go through their daily supplications as a 
spiritual exercise, but never both delighted and trem- 
bling at once, feel their souls in that state when they 
not only speak, but are spoken to, when they not only 
humble themselves, but are consciously lifted up ? 
And in almost any church, anywhere, why is it that it 
feels as though the heavens overhead were like brass, 
but that men's hearts fail them for fear, lest praying 
with the apostles, they should be really hoping against 
the laws of nature ? There is hardly anything which 
is more foreign to our modern ways of thinking than 
that a sensible sick man should ever have thought to 
be the better for calling the elders to pray over him. 
Says the Apostle, " The prayer of faith shall save the 
sick." But to-day, faith feels itself powerless for such 
a prayer, being benumbed by the phrase " laws of dis- 
ease." And yet the very same persons, who would 
scout a miraculous cure of the Middle Ages, because 
of the laws of disease being as inviolable as the bands 
of Orion or the law of gravitation, these same persons 
continually forget themselves, and allow or assert that 
the will of a patient helps on a cure. But, in doing 
this, they indicate the way in which exactly a miracle 
is to them incredible. For, precisely their objection to 
believing in a miracle is because it implies a hand 
thrust into nature from outside of it; is because it 
implies the will and action of some one not of this 
world, God, angel, or spirit. 

It is an old proverb, " Like people, like priest." Of 
course, instances to the contrary must be allowed for ; 
and then it may be said that the spirit of the age 



22 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

preaches from every pulpit. Nor can this be reason- 
ably expected to be otherwise, unless the preachers 
should be at least all men of rare genius, or have been 
educated in some other earth than this. The spirit of 
the age is like the atmosphere ; it reaches men every- 
where, as they sit at the fireside or in the lecture-room, 
and as they wander in solitude or kneel in the closet. 
And with breathing it, when baleful at all, there are 
very few persons, if any, who can resist being injured 
by it. And, notwithstanding creeds and articles of ad- 
mission, it is yet no more to be shut out of a church 
than air is. And if it could be so excluded, then 
the remedy of intellectual suffocation would itself be 
worse than the disease. And thus everywhere among 
the clergy, when they utter themselves, is manifested 
something of the same anti-supernatural, anti-spiritual 
state of mind as what plagues other people. It is true, 
that the doctrines of supernaturalism are almost uni- 
versally preached; but a discerner of spirits judges 
not only from doctrine, but from the manner also in 
which it is developed. And a preacher may set forth 
doctrines of a supernatural character, and support them 
by arguments from history and logic, and he may grace 
them, too, with rhetoric, and lend them also a sincere 
utterance, and yet have no lively sense of the miracu- 
lous, nor much perception of the spiritual, of which 
miracles are a manifestation. Miracles are for signs ; 
but they are no proper signs, unless there be in us 
some faculty or mental state to which they signify. A 
miracle, believed merely from the force of testimony, 
and from simply the same state of mind as what be- 
lieves in the reports of the diving-bell, is not rightly 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 23 

believed, is not believed in the right way, is not be- 
lieved from that spiritual state from which it ought to 
be believed, and through which only is it of any good. 
And that state of feeling is conscious of susceptibili- 
ties of its own, and of an order higher than that of 
nature, and of relations to high answering purposes in 
God, through which there is not a soul but may possi- 
bly be vouchsafed a miracle, and not a neighborhood 
but may perhaps have the Spirit poured out upon it. 

In order to have the miracles of the Bible answer 
better the purpose of doctrinal proofs, the theologians 
of this century have often largely availed themselves 
of the spirit of the times for the prejudices which it 
prompts against the possibility of the supernatural in 
any other locality or age than the scriptural. But now 
Chubb, Toland, and Anthony Collins were unbelievers ; 
and yet they were harmless men, compared with the 
hapless clergyman who thinks to uphold the miracles 
of the Holy Scriptures by denying the possibility of 
any others. He may not know the mischief of his 
course, but his successor will inevitably develop it. 

On the evidences of Christianity there is an argu- 
ment often made, according to which one well-attested 
ghost-story would countervail all the angels who have 
ever visited this earth, whether singly or in hosts, and 
all the words of the Lord which have ever come to 
prophets, and all the miracles of Jesus and his apos- 
tles, and all the visions of John the Divine. But 
Richard Baxter knew better what he was arguing 
about than perhaps any English controversialist of this 
day : and his manner of arguing was the very opposite 
of that. For he published a collection of narratives of 



24 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

supernatural occurrences in his own time, which had 
been attested to him as being true, by the persons to 
whom they happened, or else had been vouched for, 
as well authenticated, by friends whose judgment he 
thought he could trust. Such histories were becoming 
unfashionable in his day, but Baxter saw clearly and 
published, that to yield the credibility of such things 
to the sceptics was blindly to betray Christ to the Sad- 
ducees. 

Let facts be facts, and good evidence be evidence 
everywhere, or truth can never be itself. Christianity 
will never be itself while disciples fear for its fate, or 
feel it necessary to argue among themselves as to its 
essence. As an inheritance from the past, the gospel 
is defensible easily and perfectly ; but when it is it- 
self, it is its own sufficient evidence. But even as Je- 
sus in his own country had to marvel at unbelief, and 
" could there do no mighty work," so might Chris- 
tianity now, in its own country, complain of unbelief 
not as directed upon itself, but, worse than that, as gen- 
eral anti-spiritual sentiment, weakening the air ; so as 
that the soul of man can get no breath nor strength, nor 
can think freely, nor look clearly into the past, nor 
hope for what is offered it from above, nor trust even 
its own faculty for receiving. 

In those in whom it is strongest, the spirit of the age 
boasts itself against all the ages of the past, and de- 
nounces them as being unworthy of credit on the great- 
est things which they have to tell about, and as being 
incapable, incompetent witnesses on even some very 
simple subjects of observation. And this it does, not- 
withstanding that, though calling itself the spirit of 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 25 

this enlightened age, it is the avowed spirit of perhaps 
not one person in a hundred. Every now and then 
comes forth some one, who says aloud, after this man- 
ner, " I know it, and also every man living, knows by 
his own eyes and ears, that there has nothing ever been 
known of the spiritual world, not a word from it even, 
not a miracle. That there is a state, a region, a foun- 
tain-head, a something of spirit, it is now agreed shall 
be considered as certain. But that anybody knows or 
ever has known more about it than anybody else, is 
nonsense. I am myself the standard by which you 
may measure Abraham the patriarch ; and as to his 
visions, they were merely dreams, such as I have my- 
self. I am the measure of the man Paul. And, you 
may believe me, as to voice or light from heaven ever 
having come to him at the time of his conversion, 
that it was not so. Simply, at that time, he had an at- 
tack of vertigo, such as we all know something about. 
0, the glorious freedom of the spirit, by which I am 
free to ignore the weary past, so hard to understand, 
with its miracles and histories ! 0, this glorious clear- 
ing of the mind, by which now, in my view, there is 
nothing higher anywhere than the level of my own ex- 
perience ! 0, what a comfort it is to have miracles 
shrink into common earthly things, and to know that 
nobody has ever seen them, any more than I have ! " 
This would seem to be odd comfort; but there are 
persons who think that they feel it. 

The spirit of the age ! Just as it is of this age pre- 
cisely, so certainly is it but a bubble on that stream 
of spirit which comes down through all the ages of the 
past, and which will run on for men and through them, 
2 



26 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

till they all on earth shall be no more. Soon, of the 
self-gratulation and self-glorification of the spirit of 
the time, all that will remain as palpable effect will be 
a few very curious lines in the History of Man. 

As certainly as the pendulum swings from side to 
side, as certainly as feeling is subject to revulsion, as 
certainly as man walks by one step to the right and 
another step to the left, so surely in the next genera- 
tion will men of science generally believe in the mira- 
cles of the Scriptures, and be curious students also in 
the idolatries of Egypt, Greece, and Eome, and be in- 
terested even in the superstitions of the tribes of 
Africa, as seeming to suggest the possibility of some 
singular variations from the commonly received opin- 
ion as to spiritual influx. 

This world of ours, — this world of our eyes, and of 
the optical, electric, and other instruments, with which 
our eyes are helped, — this world of our bodily senses 
has circumfused about it and permeating it a world of 
spirit, as to which philosophy conjectures confidently, 
and which faith is sure of, and as effects resulting from 
which experience tells of miracles. It may be that in 
some, perhaps even in many respects, this world may be 
the antitype of that world invisible ; and it may be, as 
Plotinus has said, that we human beings are the dregs 
of the universe ; but even if it should be so, between 
us dregs and the good wine above there may be a 
great difference by inferiority, but there must also be 
a great likeness. To that spiritual world and this 
world of ours at least there is one thing in common, 
a great thing, — the company of vanished friends we 
have had, who know of our wants and ways and wishes, 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 27 

and, at least, who wonder about us. Between us 
here and them over there, on some points there must 
be affinity. And it may be, as sometimes philosophy 
has taught, that the atmosphere of that world, or rath- 
er, perhaps, an effluent, diffusive effect from it, may be 
necessary to our consciousness as thinking beings, just 
as the atmosphere of this earth is the breath which we 
draw in common with other earthly creatures, such as 
cats, dogs, and horses. But should there be anything 
like such an atmosphere surrounding us, it would not 
probably be to be known of very often ; and indeed, it 
might never be distinctly perceptible, except on some 
occasions of a miraculous kind. But, whatever may 
be the philosophy of the connection between the world 
invisible of spirit and this visible world of us people 
in the flesh, that connection does exist. 

It is true, that, above and beyond the ordinary ex- 
perience of mankind, there is an influence sometimes 
felt, of which the, effects are what is called miraculous, 
or wonder-causing ; and, in the strength of which, it is 
possible that a common man might show himself like 
an angel, for wisdom ; and, with stretching out his 
hand, have it answer like the finger of God for mira- 
cles ; and have, indeed, the inborn, latent faculties of 
his spirit so quickened, as that both his words and 
deeds together would be like signs and wonders from 
Heaven. And, it is true, that the ongoings of this 
world are capable of being quickened by power from 
the world invisible, so as that a man might be con- 
verted from sin to holiness in a moment ; and a man 
that is a leper be restored in an instant ; and even in 
such a manner, as that a dead man in the tomb might 



28 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

hear and come forth ; and so as that in a vessel, water 
might be so affected, as that upon it might occur, in- 
stantaneously, what could otherwise only be the result 
of slow processes in the earth, on the vine, and at the 
winepress, and afterwards. It is true, also, that now 
and then in the process of the ages there have been 
seasons in which, from the outpouring of the Spirit, 
young men have seen visions, and old men have 
dreamed dreams, which were signs and wonders, and 
proofs of that higher order of things which mortals 
belong to. 

It is true that, from outside of the circle of human 
nature, there are influences for human spirits, such as 
those which once, for a simple maiden, quickened fore- 
thought into the power of prophecy, and made strong 
feeling be the outgoing of angelic power, and caused 
the life of a peasant-girl of Domremy to become the 
career of Joan Dare ; and such as those, with the expe- 
rience of which George Fox grew to .be a prophet and 
the mouthpiece of power from above ; and under the 
sense of which John Wesley was wrought up to the 
recognition of spiritual marvels, which the multitude 
could not believe, and at which still the majority can 
only laugh, — influences by which every now and then 
persons are able to affirm, some that they have felt 
themselves called, warned, or comforted ; others that 
they have been inspired for work, such as otherwise 
tMey could only have wondered at and never have 
done ; and others, that they have been conscious of 
having been guarded in times of exposure, sometimes 
by angels in person, and sometimes by tendencies 
started upon them, angelic as to their ends, — influ- 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 29 

ences from above, by which there have been in every 
age, since the time of Paul, persons who have known 
what it is to be lifted up, above the beggarly element of 
mere law, into that liberty with which Christ has made 
men free, which, however, as to the ends of service, 
is stricter than even the letter of the law, and concur- 
rently with which often the Spirit will work on a 
man simultaneously as conviction for sin, as absolu- 
tion by grace, as inspiration from above, and as accept- 
ance with God. 

It is true, that the Waldenses are worthy of belief, 
and that they hold that among them, at certain periods 
in their history, there have been events sensibly 
pointed by the finger of God on their behalf It is 
true that in the Cevennes, when the Huguenots were 
nearly in the last agony from persecution, there opened 
among them a power, by which the machinations of 
their enemies afar off were sometimes disclosed to 
them, as though by sudden revelation to one or other 
of their members, — a power which clothed them with 
such terror, as that, almost in the manner of the old 
promise, one of them could chase a thousand ; and so 
as that, indeed, a mere handful of men, as they were, 
they resisted for long years and successfully the con- 
centrated armies of France, — a power which, going out 
from a speaker, made even Catholic enemies succumb 
and confess themselves, — a power which often uttered 
itself from the mouths of little children, — a power 
through which they believed many times, and where 
it is impossible to think that there could have been 
mistakes, that there was let in upon their mortal ears 
the songs of the hosts of heaven. It is true, that men 



30 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

worthy of all credence have testified of experiences 
by which the early history of the Church of Scotland 
is not unlike a continuation of the Book of Acts. And 
it is true, that by what the Spirit has been and has 
done amongst them, the Friends have been justified in 
trusting to it. It is true that, even in these latter cen- 
turies, there have' been branches of the Church which 
have blossomed with the marvels of ancient times, be- 
cause of the Spirit which has been in them. And it 
is true, that still and now, there are good reasons for 
trusting and expecting the Spirit. 

The Spirit ! The saints of all ages cannot have been 
deceived, or been self-deceived, as to what they felt 
and trusted ; the martyrs who, one after another, laid 
down their lives for Christ, until they became a great 
army; the fervent spirits, like Augustine, who tried 
one way of life and another, till at last, with turning 
about, their souls caught the light, at which they re- 
joiced with trembling ; the scholars, like Thomas 
Aquinas, who, with studying themselves as to the nat- 
ural, became but the more persuaded as to a something 
that touched, or held, or drew, or whispered them that 
was supernatural ; and students like Cudworth, who 
gathered up the experiences of the ages and the 
thoughts of all great writers, as to what of a spiritual 
nature had ever been known, or felt, and who gazed 
upon it, till they saw the Intellectual System of the 
Universe take shape in it ; and hosts after hosts of 
gentle souls, such as Madame Guion and the poet 
Cowper, who tasted, as they thought, of the powers of 
the world to come. It is true, that, except when it 
gets impeded and disbelieved, there is an opening be- 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 31 

tween this world and the next, as it is called, by which 
comes the Holy Ghost, and through which it may be 
that sometimes we some of us are approachable by va- 
rious occult influences, some of a high origin, and oth- 
ers of a nature not so good. And it is true, that there 
are good reasons for believing that when Christians 
can pray again as Christians used to do, and have fit- 
ted themselves by acts of faith for seeing it, that there 
will be felt the approach of a day which, with its com- 
ing, will assimilate, still more nearly than at present, 
the lives of modern disciples to the experiences of the 
saints of all ages. 

One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one 
Christian make a church. A believer separated from 
his fellow-creatures by convictions which they do not 
share ; a man living apart from the sin about him in 
loneliness ; a woman shrinking from unsympathetic 
contact, and dwelling in seclusion with her own heart, 
— for these all there is communion with God by the 
Spirit. But there is an answer from above, which is 
specially for the prayer of two or three. And on an 
age of controversy separating believers from one anoth- 
er, even though through it there should be higher and 
better ground to be reached, there is an irremediable, 
unavoidable drawback attendant, and that is the loss 
of the unity of the Spirit. The joy which a man has 
in common with a multitude, is not the same joy which 
he has all to himself in his closet. And however a 
man may be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, through re- 
ligious experiences apart from his neighbors, yet should 
he ever become one with a great body, wherein by that 
same Spirit all the members are harmonized together, 



32 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

he would feel a triumphant joy quite new to him ; and 
he would have such a sweet confidence of God's love 
to men everywhere and in every state, as would be for 
him like a new sense of salvation. 

Fearful is the penalty which the holiest of dis- 
senters incur, and sometimes without knowing it, and 
even while, perhaps, it is the voice of Christ from 
Heaven which they obey, though they do not go 
without compensation from the grace of God, nor yet 
without that crown which is specially vouchsafed for 
martyrs. But yet, so it is, that, in the Church of 
Christ, with losing the unity of the Spirit, or the Holy 
Spirit in common, there is a great, grievous loss. 

The Spirit may be quenched in the present age from 
one cause and another, as so largely it is ; but it can 
re-assert itself. If to-day be clouded by scepticism, to- 
morrow may be broad daylight from a " sun with heal- 
ing on its wings." And if in this age, because of sec- 
tarianism, Christians can hardly be what they ought 
to be, as to faith, hope, and charity, perhaps in the 
next age divisions will have ceased altogether. It 
may be asked, perhaps, how such a thing as that can 
ever be hoped for. And certainly it cannot be ex- 
pected humanly, as though from controversies having 
been argued out. But even as Jesus Christ, after his 
resurrection, appeared among his disciples suddenly, 
while the doors were shut, so perhaps he may again ; 
and thus it may happen that the various churches of 
Christendom, which to-day have their doors shut 
against one another, will some time find themselves all 
included in one great fold, by the manner in which, 
through the Spirit, Christ will manifest himself, so as 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 33 

to be recognized of all, in one church and another, 
irrespectively of walls of separation. 

And at that time, — 0, dear anticipation, sure 
though as the heavens themselves, however far off, — 
at that time Christians will know one another, almost 
without a word, because of the Spirit ; and with* assem- 
bling together,* they will feel joy in the Holy Ghost, 
such as at present public worship stirs but rarely. In 
meditation, also, because of the ease with which men 
w T ill apprehend spiritual things, it will be as though 
they " were all taught of God." And while inquiring 
in some particular direction, where there is no seeing 
for the eye, and no hearing for the ear, ■ — strange and 
holy experience, which only the holiest hearts are fit 
for ! — while so inquiring, often for the natural man, 
the darkness will yield to a light not of this world, nor 
of mere reason, but of the Spirit quickening him from 
within, by which man sees what he could not other- 
wise have seen, and understands what is only to be 
spiritually apprehended ; " for the Spirit searcheth all 
things, yea, the deep things of God." 

Strange and incomprehensible language this is for 
many persons. But yet it means what is the same 
thing as the text : " Draw nigh to God, and he will 
draw nigh to you" ; it means that it is of the nature of 
Deity, to gravitate towards souls in earnest. Men, too 
are encouraged to hope even more than that, and to be- 
lieve that God will help our helplessness, and inform 
our ignorant prayers, if we will let him. " Likewise the 
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities ; for we know not 
what we should pray for as we ought ; but the Spirit 
itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which 
2* c 



34 THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

cannot be uttered." And now again, because of this age 
which we live in, does this text seem to need still fur- 
ther translation ? It means that there is direct action 
of God upon the soul, and which a man may yield to 
or resist ; and that that operation is not merely such 
force as that by which the eagle lives, or the pulse 
beats, but rather is like the presence of a dear father 
with his son, in a time of trouble, by which the child 
feels himself fill with courage, and grow strangely 
quick of apprehension. 

In the next age, when men shall have learned how 
and where to find themselves ; when they shall have 
escaped from the bewildering effects of human science 
imperfectly mastered, and disproportionately esteemed ; 
when they shall have come to see how this earth re- 
volves, and may yet, very well, have been visited by 
angels at times ; when science, in some great professor, 
shall have been baptized by the Spirit, then will be- 
gin great and multitudinous effects to ensue. And be- 
cause of the spirit of the times, science then will grow 
poetic with rainbow beauties, and poetry will grow 
towards prophecy, from the. deeper strain which will be 
in it of spiritual and eternal truth. It will sing famil- 
iarly in a style which Milton reached only a few times, 
and which ^Eschylus just knew of, but which more 
exactly, will be as though King David should return 
to chant, from his heavenly experience, fresh psalms 
for his friends on earth. 

Also, under the influence of the Spirit from on high, 
social problems, which now seem to be hopeless, will 
become very easy of solution. For, when people shall 
wish to stand right before God, when they shall be 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 35 

willing to let their hearts be drawn and draw them, it 
will be wonderful, in all righteousness, how soon and 
naturally and easily they will find themselves standing 
towards one another as they ought to do. With a gen- 
eral experience of the Spirit, yet no greater than there 
is to-day of scepticism, but with such an experience 
of the Spirit, what is there socially which might not 
be hoped for ? Since, because of the Spirit in com- 
mon, there will be a feeling, — of exactly the opposite 
origin, however, from communism, — there will be a 
feeling with the rich for letting their wealth run to 
common uses, as far as prudence, and political econo- 
my, and the state of the world will allow ; like the im- 
pulse for having all things in common, which was felt 
by the first Christians, during the first few days after 
Pentecost. And things which at present are continually 
being reformed, and always to no purpose ; things in- 
vincible to reason, and incapable of being corrected by 
utilitarian philanthropy, will yield at once to the 
sweet, subtle effects of that Spirit, by which believers 
will feel themselves to be all " baptized into one body," 
and by which they will know themselves, for glory and 
shame, for joy and sorrow, to be really and vitally 
"members one of .another." 

There are some special causes of scepticism to-day, 
which in perhaps the next age will have ceased almost 
altogether. And, in that better temper of the times, 
Christianity, as the work of Christ through the Spirit, 
will manifest itself still more distinctly than it does 
to-day. It is oddly characteristic of these times, that 
as regards the gospel, men are more dutiful than believ- 
ing. They act out of a higher spirit than they are 



3b THE ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

quite sure of. " Lord, I believe ; help thou mine un- 
belief," — this precisely is their state of mind. With 
their hearts they believe, but not quite, not altogether 
with their minds. They would believe wholly but for 
an accident in social progress, and which indeed is a 
temporary humor, the mere spirit of the age. 

But already signs are visible of a new period, and 
with its arrival, fresh impulse will be felt from " the 
powers of the world to come " ; and God will be 
known more dearly, as a mighty fatherly presence 
about us and awaiting us ; and by every believing 
heart Christ will -be more tenderly felt as its per- 
sonal friend ; and by every bereaved and suffering 
spirit, more vividly still than now, the communion of 
saints will be felt across the grave. 

And because there have been wonders in the past, 
they will not, perhaps, be wanting to the glory of the 
future. And again, it may be, will the gifts of the 
Spirit subserve the work of the Spirit in the Church ; 
and one man find himself preternaturally quickened in 
wisdom, for the benefit of his fellows ; and another, 
by the way of prophecy, become like the mouthpiece 
of thought from outside of this world ; and another, 
by reason, perhaps, of some personal and fitting pe- 
culiarity, be known as a channel of healing power 
for the afflicted ; and still another, from perhaps some 
special susceptibility, be remarkable for the faith that 
will possess him, and through him that will strength- 
en the brethren. 

These are things which we may never see, per- 
haps, but yet as mere possibilities, they have some 
meaning for us. It is for human beings that the or- 



OF THE PRESENT AGE. 37 

der of nature is orderly, and not for any other crea- 
tures. And when signs and wonders are vouchsafed 
on earth, it is only to men that they are significant, 
at all. And no doubt, if men could be the better 
for it, the heavens themselves would be bowed and 
brought down. The Lord is willing to meet man as 
far as possibly he can, consistently with allowing 
man himself to stir at all. 

We men are but like creatures, which have just 
struggled into life, from out of the dust ; and there- 
fore it is no great wonder if we should, some of us, 
be tempted to think too highly of mere dust. 

But beyond the realm of the natural is the re- 
gion of the supernatural, which we know of, and to 
which, as knowing of it, we must certainly belong. 
And reasonably and rightly may we trust those 
glimpses of it, which have been caught and reported 
by previous voyagers across the sea of time, even 
though they may have been but as momentary as 
the observations at noon, which sometimes have to 
suffice the sailor for a stormy passage across the At- 
lantic ; for, even of ourselves, we can judge as to 
whither the current sets which carries us. And, for 
our comfort, we have faith, which has been wrought 
into our nature, like an instinct, by our Creator ; and 
therefore it is what may be trusted like God himself. 
And faith points for us, like the magnetic needle, in 
a starless night, and is, exactly and truly, "the evi- 
dence of things not seen." 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPEENATUEAL. 



AS to spirit, and its laws and likelihoods, a man is 
prepared for judging by zoology, chemistry, and 
star-gazing, no better at all than he would be by accu- 
racy as to the Greek particle, or by a good instinct for 
Hebrew roots. Every man to his trade. Ne sutor ultra 
crepidam ! We will listen respectfully to the man of 
science for what he has to say as to the operations and 
limitations of the laws of nature, within that circle 
of the sphere of nature which has been explored ; but 
when he would dogmatize on the supernatural, — when 
he would arrogate the right to deny the possibility of 
effects which claim to originate with a cause outside 
of what himself he calls the bounds of nature, — then 
we would remind him that he ought to keep within 
his jurisdiction, and not pronounce on matters alto- 
gether foreign to him, and which, perhaps, belong to 
the province of another man. But, the higher the 
order of mind which they are of, the further are scien- 
tific men from the danger of falling into a mistake 
like that. Many trades and professions have diseases 
peculiar to them. For the painter there is colic, for 
the clergyman, sore throat; for the workers in fine 
steel, consumption ; and for the shoemaker, hepatitis. 
And in the middle ages physicians used to be sus- 
pected of the morbus medicorum, or a peculiar ten- 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 39 

dency to unbelief, as the result of their special 
studies. And, indeed, from a special study of the laws 
of nature there is of course the danger of making too 
much of them; an undue tendency towards judging 
other things by analogy with them ; an inclination to 
deny miracles merely because of their not being uni- 
form with common life and surrounding nature. 

There have been persons who have accepted some of 
the miracles, and denied others, by a curious eclecticism 
resulting from their special studies or individual char- 
acters. One theologian has thought that there may 
have been some misunderstanding as to the cure of 
diseases by the laying-on of hands ; while he had no 
doubt at all about the miraculous draught of fishes. 
And another has believed implicitly in the miraculous 
multiplication of the twelve loaves and a few fishes, 
because of there having been three thousand fainting 
persons to be fed; while he has confessed himself 
doubtful about the first miracle at Cana in Galilee, be- 
cause of its having turned water into wine at a festival. 
And a third theologian has accepted all the miracles 
of the Gospels but one, but has doubted of one, be- 
cause of his being unable to see that any good purpose 
could have been answered, by the withering of the fig- 
tree. And there have been those who have been un- 
able to believe in miracles affecting matter, but who 
have been enthusiastic believers in prophecy, and in 
the spiritual miracle of our Lord's character. But of 
judgments on this subject, affected by personal pecu- 
liarities, perhaps the most curious is that of Lord Her- 
bert of Cherbury, who prayed to God for a sign, which 
he believed was given to him, to direct him as to pub- 



40 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

lishing a volume, which he had written against the 
probability of revelations being given from heaven, to 
individual men, or to particular places. 

By a man of the same order of mind, perhaps, with 
Lord Herbert, though perhaps more ingenious, a theory 
was invented eighty years ago, and which is still advo- 
cated, for maintaining the reality of miracle concur- 
rently with the unchangeableness of the Order of 
Nature. Thus, it is said that miracles were inserted 
in nature at the creation, to be developed in order, in 
its course, just as there is a striking of the clock at 
certain points foreordained by the maker. On this 
theory, Christ, by a prophetic impulse, called into the 
tomb to Lazarus to come forth, just at the moment 
when the buried man was already waking up from 
death by a foreordained irregularity, inserted in the 
Order of Nature. Curious believing this is, even 
though according to the order of nature ! Predis- 
positions of thought, caused by peculiar studies, very 
easily become prejudices ; and they are none the less 
bigoted and blinding, if they result from science. 

This is a common argument. God made the world 
perfect ; and if it be perfect, its laws must be unalter- 
able ; and if its laws are unalterable, they have there- 
fore never been suspended ; and if they have never 
been suspended, then there has never been a miracle. 
But now this is absurd, even in its own way of reason- 
ing. For, indeed, the more absolutely perfect the world 
is reckoned, precisely the more significant does any 
variation become in the uniform working of its laws. 

But probably a miracle never was a suspension of 
the laws of nature. The Scriptures do not so define 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 41 

it. And, indeed, about the laws of nature they never 
say anything at all. And it is very likely that what 
in our blindness, we should call a suspension of the 
laws of nature, or a momentary stoppage of nature's 
clock-work, is really more than that, and is, indeed, 
matter pliant to spirit ; and has occasionally been 
something more important still than that, and has 
been really the finger of God in the laws of nature, 
pointing them to a special purpose of his own ; and 
been, indeed, the showing from heaven of a sign and 
wonder. 

It is true, that, from studying the laws of matter, a 
man may be indisposed for believing in spirit. Not, 
however, that the laws of nature have anything to 
suggest against the existence of spirit ; for they have 
not. But it is an effect of our human weakness, that 
if habitually we look intently in one direction, we find 
ourselves disinclined from the opposite. And so it may 
sometimes be, that the farther a man sees into nature, 
the blinder he may grow as to what is above it, or to 
the supernatural. But Bacon and Newton were not 
sceptical as to miracles. Philosophers, such as they 
were, have eyes not merely for details, but for the uni- 
verse as a whole. They are more than the owners of 
lamps, to grope with, as being themselves illumi- 
nated from within; and under their analyzing eyes 
even solid matter itself seems but like the mist which 
just holds the beauty of the rainbow ; while also to 
them the laws of nature are not mere enactments, but 
are qualities of that creative power which is every- 
where present, and which everywhere is undivided 
and uncompounded, simple in essence but various in 



42 SCIENCE AND THE SUPEENATURAL. 

manifestation ; a power which is attraction and re- 
pulsion, both in one, and life and death on the same 
impulse. 

The truths which flash like lightning in the soul of 
the prophet, are not without corroboration from the 
long processes, by which philosophy investigates. And 
when he attends reverently to the experiments of sci- 
ence, often the true philosopher testifies that to his 
feeling there are reported, not only forces pervading 
matter, but also from outside of nature and above it ; 
and from the place of spirit also, the living eye and 
the working will, and the existence incorruptible, from 
which those forces begin. 

In the long, early morning of creation, after the 
world had been without form and void, everything 
everywhere was a miracle, — the first fern, however it 
may have been produced, with its leaves heavy with 
moisture and sparkling in the sun ; the first oak, long 
afterwards, in an atmosphere grown cooler and drier ; 
the last ichthyosaurus, as it died of an altered world ; 
the first horse, proud of his speed on the green turf ; 
the lion, as he first roared after his prey, by an instinct 
which had not yet learned its own meaning ; and the 
lark, as it first went up into the sky, and filled the air 
with its song. And so, by the true philosopher re- 
membering this, miracles are not thought of as being 
antecedently impossible. Nor to him, either, is it an 
impossible thing, that a disembodied spirit should be 
able to act on matter move a table, throw stones, make 
noises ; for he remembers that there is no real knowl- 
edge of the manner by which even the living man has 
his limbs actuated by his spirit. A belief in the pos- 
sibility of miracles is not, then, barred by science. 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 43 

That God, as being perfect, must have made a world 
perfect in itself, and with perfect laws, and therefore 
with laws which never can need to be meddled with, 
is the great argument against the possibility of miracles. 
It is of the same kind with that, which the heathen 
Celsus urged against the probability of redemption 
through Christ, which indeed was a miracle at the 
beginning, — " That God has made his work perfect 
once for all, and does not need, like a man, to mend it 
afterwards." But perhaps it is exactly because God is 
not like a man, that he does not make his work per- 
fect once for all, is not obliged to complete it absolutely 
and at once, and to get it off his hands. Perhaps the 
world is perfect, not in time, but in eternity. It was 
not absolutely perfect when it was merely crept upon 
by the Saurians, nor was it perfect as surveyed by the 
childlike eyes of Adam ; nor is it perfect now, being 
as it were a creature, groaning and travailing in pain 
along with man, as St. Paul would say. But perhaps 
it is really perfect, only as it looks to the angels ; only 
as seen from the beginning all through to the end, with 
its uses all plain, and its susceptibilities of divine agency 
all manifest, whether for uniform law, or for signs and 
wonders from heaven ; whether as a school for the 
education of the human intellect, or as a land, where 
what is natural, at first, grows to be spiritual ; and 
where man arrives at, and tastes of the powers of the 
world to come. 

Also, there is no analogy between God and man as 
to their works, whence to argue against miracles. Man, 
of himself and by himself, can do nothing whatever, 
absolutely nothing, whether perfect or imperfect. For 



44 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

he cannot stir himself, cannot even lift his hand, but 
by the help of powers, about which he knows almost 
nothing whatever, — vital force, the will, the con- 
tractility of the muscles. Also, when it is to be rea- 
soned from, the word " perfect " means finished, done 
with. Now this is a very good word, for the good 
work of a mortal. But it would seem that sometimes 
the work of God, who is a spirit, eternal, immortal, 
might rather be expected to be perfect, by being in a 
way comparatively imperfect ; that is, by being filled 
with a spirit of growth, and, therefore, of improving 
change, and by continuing forever in connection with 
that sustaining power, through which things change 
" from glory to glory." For the children of the High- 
est then, as growing more and more receptive, it might 
be expected that there should be " times of refresh- 
ing " to come " from the presence of the Lord " ; that 
it should be in the order of Providence to " put a new 
spirit within " men from time to time, and subserving 
the same purpose as creation itself, also to " show won- 
ders in the heavens and in the earth." 

And now these wonders do not derogate from the 
wondrousness of the universe, but really they enhance 
it. For, as a fact, would the laws of nature be less re- 
liable for a philosopher, because of his believing in the 
possibility of exceptional occurrences like miracles ? 
And the answer is, No ; emphatically, No. Sir Isaac 
Newton was not a matter-of-course Christian ; indeed, 
he was a Christian scholar. But, from believing in 
miracles, he does not appear to have been weakened 
or confused, as a believer in the Order of Nature. 
And actually it was by him, that the law of gravita- 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 45 

tion was discovered. It is a legal maxim, that " ex- 
ceptions prove the rule " ; and some day or other, it 
will commonly be held, that, by their nature and man- 
ner, miracles make more plain the very laws against 
which they would seem to except. 

A perfect God can only have made a world perfect, 
of its kind ; and a perfect world must be made of per- 
fect laws ; and perfect laws can never need to be sus- 
pended or supplemented ; and so there is no possible 
room in nature for a miracle. It is ludicrous, how this 
argument has been iterated and reiterated, as though 
logic were just as good against facts as against doc- 
trines. In the last century, by men of science and 
others who never saw one fall, it was proved to a 
demonstration, that meteoric stones were vulgar er- 
rors. To-day, however, science is sublimely persuad- 
ed of them, notwithstanding their having once been 
natural and scientific impossibilities. And hereafter 
miracles will be believed, for reasons of various kinds, 
and for twenty thousand analogies, by the successors 
of the very men who to-day argue that there is 
logically no room for a miracle in the world. 

The perfect world of a perfect maker excludes 
miracles ! But now, perhaps, the world is not as 
perfect as it seems, or as some people fancy them- 
selves bound to affirm it. Perhaps, too, it is ab- 
solutely perfect only in logic. And perhaps in this 
case, as is often done, the form of logic has been bor- 
rowed by arrant nonsense. 

A perfect world, in perfect order from the beginning, 
and that will keep perfect to the end ; and which, 
therefore, will admit of nothing new in it, not. a single 



46 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

miracle, — why, what an assumption this is ! For, 
when the argument takes this turn, there are some 
questions to be asked. "What is this world ? What 
is perfect order ? Whereabouts, even, is this world 
we talk about ? Whereabouts is it in those fields of 
space, which are crossed one way and another, and up 
and down, by those infinite lines, measured by which 
from here to the sun is as nothing, and in the course 
of which, earth and suns and planetary systems are 
passed by, like moths on a sunbeam ? The perfect 
Order of Nature pleaded against the possibility of a 
miracle ; while nobody knows, or is ever likely to 
know, in the full sense, what that order is ! Perhaps, 
after all, miracles were in order always, in perfect 
order, in the order of the universe : as of course they 
must have been. Perfect order may be one thing, as 
viewed in the system of the universe ; and may be the 
same thing, with a difference apparent or real, as dis- 
cernible in some little dim corner in creation, or as 
manifested in a load of matter whirling on its way, a 
quaking earth with a magnetic affinity for the north 
pole, and with other affinities quite as important as 
that, perhaps, although at present quite unsuspected. 

Miracles, or many things in the Bible which com- 
monly are so denominated, may be exceptions to what 
are called the laws of nature, as at present understood 
by the best student ; but, as witnessed by a seraph, 
they may have been but the effect of laws more in 
number than we know of, and some of which acted 
marvellously, by being in connection with a mind as 
peculiarly organized as a prophet's is, at a moment of 
faith in the head of the universe, as almighty and 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 47 

good. And some other miracles may have been mo- 
mentary effects from this cause, — " There is a spiritual 
body." Every mortal is both body and spirit ; or, as 
it would be better to say, he is and has what St. Paul 
means when he says, "There is a natural body, and 
there is a spiritual body." By death, the natural body 
is loosened from the spiritual body, and drops and 
begins to decay, like an old cloak ; while the spiritual 
body has its senses slowly open to the world, in which 
it finds itself. But, even while cased in flesh, it is 
possible that some of the faculties of the spiritual 
body, either by accident or by the grace of God, may 
be so quickened as to act independently of the flesh. 
The eye, with which I am to see hereafter, might be 
opened for a moment, so as that I should get a glimpse 
of spiritual marvels; and that opening of my eye 
would be a miracle, like what happened when the 
prophet Elisha, with his servant, was beleaguered by 
the army of Syrians. " And Elisha prayed, and said, 
Lord, I pray thee open his eyes, that he may see. And 
the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he 
saw ; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and 
chariots of fire round about Elisha." And in the same 
manner might the dormant ear also of my spiritual 
body be momentarily quickened, so as to catch just a 
word or two, a sound, an alarm, a message, from the 
spiritual world ; which indeed is intimately near, and 
yet also infinitely far off. And this would be a miracle, 
like what Paul experienced at his conversion. Also, 
if by some chance, through some inward predisposi- 
tion, a man should catch a breath from the air of that 
world, where the Great Eirst Cause is first felt, where 



48 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

spirits are made messengers, and where ministration 
looks like flaming fire, the effect on him would be a 

miracle like what the last words of David tell of, 

" The -spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word 
was in my tongue." These illustrations may be enough 
for hinting that there is a philosophy of religion, in 
which faith and science are to be reconciled, and in 
which the natural and the supernatural may be of one 
accord. But let now one other illustration be taken. 
It is conceivable, what in many ages has been generally 
believed, under the best philosophy of the time, that 
between us and God, neighbors of ours almost, far be- 
low the region of seraphs, not nearly as high up as 
where angels, with their archangels, congregate, and 
indeed near upon and sometimes fairly withinside of 
the realm of nature, are beings who could, for mo- 
mentary effect, and as though from a long distance, play 
upon the laws of nature, so as to work what Hugh 
Farmer and Baden Powell would even call miracles, 
as being in their estimation acts suspending the laws 
of nature. Philosophy had very close blinders on, 
when it decided, with Farmer, that for the elevation 
of a man in the air, without human assistance, there 
must be a suspension of the laws of nature. A law 
of nature suspended for that ! It was no more neces- 
sary for that, than it is for a man's lifting his hand in 
the air. Something additional to the laws of nature, 
as catalogued by philosophers, may have been neces- 
sary, some occult law it may be, in unusual strength, 
or perhaps an agent from a foreign world. But a sus- 
pension of the law of gravitation it certainly is not 
necessary to suppose. As Jesus with the law of 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 49 

Moses, so miracles with the laws of nature, do not 
destroy, but fulfil. 

Also, in view of an argument, it is always to be re- 
membered that the phrase " laws of nature " is a figure 
of speech, good enough for ordinary purposes, but liable 
to be deceptive at a critical point. Law is what has 
been written for the purpose of being read ; and also 
it is what has been written for the purpose of being 
read, on the supposition of there being a joint under- 
standing between the writer and the reader. That is 
law ; and it is because of that sense of the word " law," 
that the phrase " laws of nature " is used against mira- 
cles. But now, has ever the God of nature been 
pledged to any text-book of natural philosophy, so as 
that Science, or any son of hers, should be able to say, 
" Because of this book of mine I know all about God, 
as to what either he will do or what he can allow in 
this earth"? 

Also, it is of the nature of " law," in its primitive 
meaning, that it should need, and from time to time 
should admit of adaptation, and amendment by inter- 
pretation. But that exactly is what is forgotten, when 
the majesty of the word "law" is adduced in a con- 
troversy on the subject of miracles. And thus it is 
that against the possibility of miracles, a phrase of 
fallible origin is urged as an infallible argument. 

Laws of nature working together, and yet distin- 
guishable from one another, like powers harnessed in 
machinery, — of the on-going of nature, this may be a 
good definition for most purposes ; but when by this 
definition it is proposed to falsify the truthfulness of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, as to his miracles, then, in the 

3 D 



50 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

sense intended and for the purpose in view, let it never 
be forgotten that really there are no laws of nature, and 
that there never were any. Men talk of forces cen- 
tripetal and centrifugal, and as though one might have 
been enacted first, and then the other : but the truth 
probably is, that the two are but diverse manifestations 
of a common cause ; or, rather, that the two are one, 
while seeming diverse. Also this common cause seems 
to man like two different forces or laws, only because 
of the peculiar and limited manner in which he can ap- 
prehend. What poor creatures really men are, as they 
look about them, with no very wide or keen gaze, as even 
telescopes and microscopes might remind them ! For, 
with far better instruments than have ever yet been 
made, and with better eyes than children have ever 
yet been born with, what marvels might not men see, 
to their amazement ! And yet these men, or some of 
them ; dwellers, too, in a little earth surrounded by 
infinity ; born also in time, as they know they are, yet 
having also some sense of eternity; these men of a 
day, and creatures of God, — Feuerbach, the German, 
and Strauss, a German too, and Eenan of France, and 
Buckle, who was English, with others like-minded, too 
numerous to count, — these all have proclaimed aloud, 
that, because of what they know, there cannot have 
been anywhere, at any time, anything but what they 
might have expected, and precisely that there never 
has been a miracle. But for all that, and in spite of 
their logic, "the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the 
wise, that they are vain." This sentiment a Psalm- 
ist uttered once among the Hebrews, and long after- 
wards it was quoted by Paul in a letter to Corinth ; 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 51 

but it was never more pertinent than it is to-day. 
Arago said that outside of mathematics the word " im- 
possible " for anything was rash. Perhaps he said it 
out of what may be called the common sense of sci- 
ence ; which common sense, however, is as rare in 
connection with science as with anything else. Or it 
may be that he said it, because of his having studied 
the case of Angelique Cottin, a girl who was attended 
by some curious phenomena. But any way, he was 
very unlike Michael Faraday and some others. " Pos- 
sible and impossible pronounced upon, by the last 
edition published of the laws of nature ! " This is 
what is continually being proclaimed by one man and 
another. It would make people all laugh or else pity, 
but for the spirit of the age ; for, indeed, w^e are all of 
us much inclined to the same thing. But it is no mat- 
ter for these philosophers and their followers, as to who 
they are or where, — the wise men. For certainly 
somewhere there is wisdom higher than their wisdom, 
and from the height of which their self-complacency 
must be something very curious to witness. But, above 
and beyond all, there is the truth of the text that " the 
Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are 
vain." 

Laws of nature arrayed against miracles ! For an 
argument in that direction, there are no such things 
as laws of nature. Or if the phrase " laws of nature " 
should be allowed to stand, on its being made right by 
accompanying explanation, it would be found then to 
be the same thing as the spirit of God, which, like 
" the wind bloweth where it listeth," and not merely 
for human creatures on their way from the cradle to 



52 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

the grave, but for worlds, also, while slowly growing 
into form, and while lengthening out, with change and 
time, the fulfilment of their respective purposes. It 
is that spirit which is the transient life of the butter- 
fly, and the inspiration which "giveth man under- 
standing " ; that spirit which holds the earth to its 
time and place, and which yet also strives with men 
through the conscience ; that spirit which is the life 
of all lives, from the worm to the seraph, and of which 
the Spirit of Nature, as it is called, is but one of many 
manifestations. 

On arriving at the point of view which we have 
now reached, there have been persons who have felt the 
atmosphere about them grow more favorable to faith, 
and who have exclaimed, " Now I hear them more 
plainly, those witnesses of old, chosen beforehand. 
Now I am less a't variance with some of the possibili- 
ties of faith. Now some things which were hard to be 
understood are easier. holy prophets and apostles ! 
forgive me, in these times when the pathway of thought 
goes winding about, if I have sometimes, with turning, 
heard you but indistinctly, and fancied that the fault 
was all with you ! " 

But there are others, to whom all this would be 
quite unintelligible, and who simply iterate and re- 
iterate words, outside of the circle of which they can- 
not see. And now for them, also, let us see if there 
be anything more to be said, which may avail. It is 
an eclipse of faith for us all at present : and things 
which were simple enough formerly, in the broad day- 
light, now look strangely ; and what once would have 
been comparatively of little significance may now be 
a great help. 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 53 

But first let us hear again exactly what Strauss 
would say. And he says, very emphatically, " There 
is no right conception of what history is, apart from 
a conviction that the chain of endless causation can 
never be broken, and that a miracle is an impossi- 
bility." But how, then, has it been with almost every 
historian, of every age, before David Hume ? How 
was it with Josephus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plu- 
tarch, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius of Hali- 
carnassus, Pausanias the Topographer, and their com- 
pany all ? According to that little formula by Strauss, 
they would all be disqualified. Surely, surely, by at- 
tempting to prove too much, Professor David F. Strauss 
has disproved his own position. He is famous for his 
work on the four Gospels, in which he laboriously 
eliminated every miracle from the life of Jesus. It 
was after the publication of this work, that there was 
offered to him the professorship of theology in the 
University of Zurich, and which he would have ac- 
cepted, but for an insurrection of the people of the 
city. The end of the matter was a letter in which he 
stated his opinions, and in reference to which it may 
be said, that he perhaps had more faith even in deny- 
ing, than possibly some others had even in the heat 
of dogmatizing, and that not improbably Jesus Christ 
would sooner have accepted even his unbelief than 
the unmitigated virtues of some of his opponents. 
But still, in his attempt to go to Zurich as Professor 
of Theology, he was in the curious position of propos- 
ing to lecture on Christianity, without believing in a 
single miracle ; and of attempting it, too, by the help 
of historians, not one of whom, as he thought, had 



54 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

any right conception of history. Alas, alas ! but so 
it is, that every step forward intellectually costs a hun- 
dred failures first ; and it is because of the tears and 
misery of adventurers on the road to knowledge, that 
the flints of difficulty are found smooth, by the multi- 
tude as they advance from behind. 

There has lately been published a volume entitled 
" Christ the Spirit." It is the serious work of a de- 
vout mind struggling with theological difficulty. Says 
the author, E. A. Hitchcock, in regard to the Scrip- 
tures, " If, therefore, we accept these miracles as his- 
torical realities, we must refuse the idea of law, and 
must admit that there is no truth in the doctrine 
which affirms an order in the course of nature." 
Perhaps the force of this opinion may have been 
anticipated, and even perhaps prevented, by some 
previous remarks. Also it is said, that, if those mira- 
cles are to be believed in, there is no such thing pos- 
sible as science. But that would not appear to have 
been the opinion of Sir Isaac Newton, the man, of all 
men, best fitted to judge. And further it is added, 
that if those miracles are to be believed in, then rea- 
sonably Grecian mythology must be believed. Grecian 
mythology might, for that reason, claim to be ex- 
amined ; but not necessarily claim, therefore, to be 
believed. And also it is not theology, but sciolism, 
which would wish to argue Christianity in ignorance 
of the philosophy and religion of Greece. Light, 
and still more and more light, let us have, wherever 
we may be, and even though it should fall on our 
Bibles, through some crevice in the wall of a Grecian 
temple ! 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 55 

And now who offers himself next as a witness on 
this subject ? It is Henry T. Buckle, who would tell 
us, out of his " History of Free Thought," that there is 
little reason to hope for the enlargement of the ground 
of the evidences of Natural and Eevealed Eeligion; 
that the materials already exist from which thoughtful 
students must make up their minds finally on the 
questions at issue; that already men are taking up 
their places, in hostile array, on subjects where no 
further evidence can be offered, and where there is lit- 
tle reason to hope for the alteration of the state of par- 
ties to the end of time ; that, as regards Christianity, 
there never has been an age so hostile to it as the pres- 
ent, and never an age, either, so much actuated by it. 
Nothing more to be expected on the greatest possible 
subject of thought ! Why, what advanced times we 
live in ! and even without our knowing of it, some of 
us ! The field of thought is cleared by scientific method, 
and there is no chance of anything to the end of time ! 
This may be true for a near-sighted thinker, but hardly 
for any one else. Are there, then, experts who can look 
through the universe as though it were machinery ? 
Electricity, magnetism, and odic force, with which 
man has affinities, and by which indeed, apparently, 
he has all manner of possible connections, — have 
these all been thoroughly explored ? And is it so 
absolutely nothing, as not to be worthy of mention, — 
the chance of there being a Master for the great Ma- 
chine, with a will of his own ; the possibility of there 
being a Father in heaven with children on this earth ? 
Man proposes, but God disposes. That is a French ' 
proverb, to which every now and then there is a won- 



56 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

derful point, and that point may possibly show itself 
at any time. 

And now next, let what Baden Powell would say 
be considered. He is Savilian Professor of Geometry 
at Oxford, and a clergyman, yet he is of opinion that 
it would be a great good done, if Christianity could be 
relieved of its responsibility for miracles. Prophecy, 
however, and some other spiritual marvels, he thinks 
may rationally be connected with Christianity. This, 
however, Eenan would not agree to ; for he holds that 
miracles are no more possible or credible for the souls, 
than for the bodies of men. However, Baden Powell 
is certain that the Order of Nature is the first thing, 
and everything for belief; and then he argues, very 
properly, for patience with untoward facts, as likely, 
some time or other, to get subordinated. He has heard, 
however, of apparently marvellous occurrences, " such 
as implied a subversion of gravitation, or of the con- 
stitution of matter ; descriptions inconceivable to those 
impressed with the truth of the great first principle of 
all induction, — the invariable constancy of the order 
of nature." But then, as about a thing, with which he 
could have no patience, nor his system either, he cries 
out that he has " heard it positively affirmed by vera- 
cious, educated, and well-informed persons, in perfect 
good faith, that a solid mahogany table has been seen 
to rise from the ground and its surface to move in 
waves." For that, of "course, was a thing for which, in 
his philosophy, there was no hope of a place, any more 
than for the miracles which he wished Christianity 
could be freed from. Order of Nature ! always only the 
Order of Nature, — as though there were no such thing 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 57 

conceivable as the Order of the Universe. And yet, 
by way of analogy with his special studies, it would 
seem as though he might have thought of it. For 
problems wdiich are utterly insoluble by arithmetic, 
and which are outside of its range, are the objects and 
beauties of algebra, which has been called a diviner 
arithmetic, and which may well be reckoned by some 
persons to have wonder-working laws. 

And now, on this subject of the Order of Nature, 
has Baden Powell ever been answered ? A table ris- 
ing in the air, if such a thing might be, would be a 
sufficient answer for his style of scepticism, according 
to his own words, apparently. But, apart from that, 
has any answer been made, by which to justify a be- 
lief in the miracles of Christianity, against the Ox- 
ford professor with his grand argument against it ? 

And now, in the sequence of thought, appears James 
A. Froude, also of Oxford, and late Fellow of Exeter 
College. And in a recent publication, in a passage 
which specially refers to the volume of " Essays and 
Reviews," of all the authors of which Baden Powell 
was the most notable, J. A. Froude says, that against 
that style of thought there has nothing been adduced, 
but " the professional commonplaces of the members 
of a close guild, men holding high office in the Church, 
or expecting to hold high office there." Professional 
commonplaces ! Many others besides Froude have 
found them such, and have thought them to be in- 
sufficient answers for the new scepticism. But now, 
like Baden Powell, J. A. Froude, by implication at 
least, distinctly acknowledges that the miracles of the 
Scriptures would be credible, if some of the phenom- 
3* 



58 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

ena of Spiritualism should be realities. To these 
things his attention had been drawn ; and to his knowl- 
edge, he avers that they have been vouched for by per- 
sons, who would be good witnesses on a criminal trial. 
But yet he says, " Our experience of the regularity of 
nature on one side is so uniform, and our experience 
of the capacities of human folly on the other is so 
large, that, when people tell us these wonderful stories, 
most of us are content to smile : we do not care so 
much as to turn out of our way to examine them. 
The Bible is equally a record of miracles." The 
Bible ! But, indeed, of what use is it to mind any- 
thing, which he may say about the miracles of the 
Bible, w^hen, according to his own showing, he would 
not even go out of his way, to see whether they might 
not be true ? For, things which to his mind, — whether 
rightly or wrongly is no matter, — things which to his 
mind were of a piece with the miracles of the Bible, 
he would not even turn out of his way to examine. 
But against a belief in miracles he urges not only 
that they are impossible, but that " the miracles of St. 
Theresa and St. Francis of Assisi are as well estab- 
lished as those of the New Testament." And now, 
even if this should be so, what then ? Are we for that 
to forego our belief in the miracles of the Bible ? No : 
quite otherwise. And, if there be anything to be 
learned from Assisi, so much the better. 

Next in order of time, with an argument upon this 
subject, appears Dr. Louis Biichner, with his volume 
on " Force and Matter." Says this author, " We should 
only waste words in our endeavor to prove the natural 
impossibility of a miracle. No educated, much less a 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 59 

scientific person, who is convinced of the immutable 
order of things, can nowadays believe in miracles. 
We find it rather wonderful that so clear and acute a 
thinker as Ludwig Feuerbach should have expended 
so much logic in refuting the Christian miracles. 
What founder of any religion did not deem it neces- 
sary, in order to introduce himself to the world, to 
perform miracles ? The miracle-seeker sees them daily 
and hourly. Do not the table-spirits belong to the 
order of miracles ? All such miracles are equal in 
the eye of science : they are the result of a diseased 
fancy." These are the words of a man very clear in 
his mind ; though his mind is not of the same order 
with Plato's, certainly. " Do not the table-spirits be- 
long to the order of miracles?" Dr. Biichner him- 
self would seem to think so, by the way in which he 
asks the question. Baden Powell too, no doubt, would 
have agreed with him ; and so also would Froude, the 
historian. But Biichner has one other word for us. 
" Even to this day, there is no deficiency of miracles 
and powerful spirits among savage and ignorant tribes." 
Are we, then, to be frightened from believing in mira- 
cles, because, if there are any at all, there are some 
also among savages ? Just as well might Dr. Biich- 
ner expect a Christian to be ashamed of the sun, be- 
cause the red Indian hunts in the light of it. " Miracles 
and powerful spirits among savage and ignorant tribes ! " 
Well, the better we know about that thing, the wiser 
we shall be, and the better it will be for our theology ; 
and it is not everybody who is afraid of learning. 

Baden Powell, James A. Froude^ Dr. Biichner, and 
with these might be joined one or two other leaders in 



60 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

the argument against the credibility of miracles, — 
these would all apparently be ready to test the reality 
of the miracles of the Bible by the phenomena of 
Spiritualism, or perhaps more definitely by the reality 
of the raps, which are called spirit-rappings. In some 
sense, they may even be said to dare the experiment ; 
and by many high 'authorities of the Catholic Church, 
from early down to more modern times, it would have 
been deemed a simple and very cheap way of set- 
tling such a controversy. This is said, however, not 
because exactly what is called spirit-rapping to-day 
was known in the Middle Ages, but because of its 
being certainly akin to many possibilities, which the 
Catholic Church has always maintained, and faith in 
which has been a large part of that Church's vitality. 
The early Fathers of the Church did not think it to 
be derogatory to their charge, even as Christian chiefs, 
to show Pagans how to draw an inference from their 
own Pagan prodigies. And it would have seemed 
a grand chance to Henry More and Eichard Bax- 
ter if the opportunity had' been offered of arguing 
from spirit-raps to the truth of the Scriptures, as is 
abundantly evident from their many works respec- 
tively. It would have been an argument, to the nature 
of which Ralph Cudworth would have assented, and 
for which at once he would have found a place in the 
" Intellectual System of the Universe." And Jeremy 
Taylor, with eyes glancing from high to low, and from 
unearthly depths to prophetic heights, and with a 
power of vision for following the strange lines of 
similitude which permeate creation, and which make 
it continually, in one quarter or another, glitter and 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 61 

flash with the light of unexpected analogies ; Jeremy 
Taylor — but indeed, as sanctions for the purpose in 
view it is superfluous to name any more names than 
those of Cudworth and More and Baxter ; for prob- 
ably with them would have assented nearly all the 
great men who were eminent in theology in the days 
when theology itself was eminent. But now, before 
attending to an incident of yesterday, let us have in 
mind what the great Platonist addressed to Lorenzo 
de Medici on the subject of the Christian religion : " I 
certainly think that, to us undeserving, certain mirac- 
ulous signs have been divinely given. But all things 
are not shown to all : many also are not written down, 
or, if written, are not credited, in consequence of some 
wicked and detestable men imitating miracles. I have 
heard of some miracles in our own time, and in our 
city of Florence, which are to be believed. Do not 
be surprised, my Lorenzo, that Marsilius Ficinus, 
studious of philosophy, should introduce miracles ; 
for the things of which we write are true, and it is 
the duty of a philosopher to confirm everything by its 
own proper kind of argument." 

A short time since in London, one evening, a gentle- 
man enumerated jocularly what he thought w T ere Yan- 
kee notions, and he named spirit-rappings. The speaker 
was a distinguished man of science, and religiously a 
man after the manner of Baden Powell, with a truly 
Christian heart, but on the subject of miracles hav- 
ing, perhaps, the eyes of his understanding somewhat 
" dazed with excess of light " from the sun of science. 
Suddenly he was accosted by a stranger present, who ■ 
said, " I am a denizen of that New World ; and it is 



62 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

said that in some places there, with walking briskly 
over the floor at certain times, a man emits sparks 
from his fingers, with which even gas can be lighted. 
What would you say to that ? " It was replied, " Non- 
sense ! it is impossible." Then said the American, " It 
was because I expected that answer that I asked you 
the question. In a scientific circle, I once knew 
twenty-eight persons out of thirty assent to that 
same opinion which you have now expressed ; but 
there is not one of them to-day that would. In New 
York certainly, and in Boston, and perhaps all over 
America, on a frosty night, in a house warmed by the 
best modes, often a person with walking briskly over 
a carpet, and offering the knuckle of a finger to some 
metallic object, has it emit a blue, detonating spark. 
And now, by experience, as common almost as that of 
those electric sparks, I tell you that what are called 
spirit-rappings are true ; or, rather, that those rappings 
are real which are called spiritual. And now I will 
ask you in all honesty to answer me as you would in 
your place in the Eoyal Society. And supposing that 
you heard on a table raps, the origin of which you 
could not possibly connect with cheating, nor yet with 
science, as it is understood to-day; and supposing, 
too, that these raps evinced as much intelligence as 
a boy of five years old, — what now would you think ? " 
Said the man of science, thoughtfully, and after a long 
pause, " I should say that, to my present belief, it was 
the greatest thing which had happened since the crea- 
tion of the world." To this the American rejoined, 
" Those raps are of far less peculiarity as to signifi- 
cance than you think. But, like many other persons 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 63 

in pursuit of a special business, you have got lodged 
in a mere corner of the broad field of knowledge, and 
where you are capable of being astonished by what 
would be no absolute novelty to the Esquimaux, or to 
the Maoris of New Zealand.'' 

What is called " rappings " is the most common of 
all the spiritualistic manifestations, and, for the pur- 
pose for which the thing is referred to in the preced- 
ing anecdote, it would no doubt have been agreed to 
by Baden Powell and his fellow-philosophers as being 
a sufficient test. But also for that thing precisely 
which he mentions — of the rising of the table from the 
floor — there is abundant evidence, and some of which 
is of the very best kind. Btichner says that because 
of the laws of nature " there exist no supersensual and 
supernatural things and capacities, and they never can 
exist " ; and so he denies at once table-spirits and all 
other spirits, and also the possibility of Eevelation ; 
but luckily he does also, with other things, deny that 
any one can read an opaque sealed letter, or guess the 
thoughts of another ; for, besides being mesmeric 
experiences, these things are spiritual phenomena 
connected with the rappings, of the certainty of which 
whole armies of witnesses could testify. 

That these rappings do really exist, and that they 
are as real as gravitation, or as thunder and lightning, 
may now be fairly and properly assumed, since about 
them it is no longer a question of the value of testi- 
mony. For persons open to evidence on the subject, 
one hundredth part of the testimony which now exists 
would be enough ; and, for those who cannot believe 
the present evidence on the matter, a thousand times 



64 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

more evidence ought to be insufficient, and probably 
would be. Whatever it may be, whether good or bad, 
the thing is real. Multitudes may have had no oppor- 
tunity of personally knowing about it ; and many per- 
sons may think, very properly, that they would them- 
selves be none the wiser for meddling with it ; but still 
it may now reasonably be assumed as a fact. As a 
matter of evidence, the thing is not as it was twenty 
years ago, when it was first known of by rumors from 
Eochester ; nor as it was ten years ago ; nor even as it 
was five years since. And science and people who 
believe by its permission may as well accept the fact 
to-day as wait for fifty years. For if those rappings 
should stop to-morrow as suddenly as they began, 
which not improbably some day they will, yet cer- 
tainly in the next century they would be believed in 
as having been real, because of the testimony and 
literature and wide belief existing to-day on the sub- 
ject. 

But perhaps it may be said that mere unaccountable 
rappings, even though somewhat intelligent, are no 
great matter. And they are not any great thing for 
a child learning the alphabet, it is true ; but they 
become of infinite importance when, by dominant 
science, they are pronounced to be impossible. A 
scientific impossibility proved to be true is a wonder- 
ful thing ; and so wonderful is it, that under no mag- 
nifying-glass can it be made to seem too wonderful. 
But it is also a wonderful thing, with all manner of 
wonders behind it, possibly. 

And it may be asked whether it is good or devilish. 
For our argument that does not matter. And besides, 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 65 

that question implies what has not been at all assumed, 
— that the rappings are connected with the spiritual 
world. But, with a view to the next question, let it 
be allowed that they are so connected. And now per- 
haps it is asked whether they are Christian or Mo- 
hammedan. And the answer is, that they are both, 
just as talking is. They are a way of conversing 
with spirits who may be good or bad, wise or silly, 
and through which a man may have some such ex- 
perience as he might have in his native town, if he 
should, after a long absence, go into a crowded hall, 
and from a gallery, in the dark, talk with voices down 
below. 

But an argument on Spiritualism started from " the 
rappings " would be about the same as though, because 
of having learned the first letter of the alphabet, a man 
should think to read Hebrew, and want to argue the 
value of the Mazoretic points, or the nature of proph- 
ecy, or the comparative antiquity, respectively, of 
the various parts of the Book of Genesis. Spiritual- 
ism, as it is called, is a field as broad nearly as the 
presence of the human race, and as long almost as the 
ages themselves have been. It illustrates the pneu- 
matology of the Scriptures ; it is a key to the inner- 
most rooms of the temples of Greece; and it avails 
for the better understanding of Plato. It solves enig- 
mas as to Mahomet, and it accounts for the career of 
Joan Dare. It is the light by which in these days to 
read intelligently the history of Salem wdtchcraft, the 
Journal of George Fox, and the account of Edward 
Irving and the unknown tongues. It is enriched by 
the study of the Talmud, and not confused ; and it 



66 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

answers for information, when it is tried on the re- 
ligion of almost any primitive tribe, which has been 
reported upon, even the very latest. 

Spiritualism is of many grades ; and it may be con- 
nected with every sect in Christendom, and with every 
sect that follows Mahomet, with Buddhism, and with 
Brahminism. It is the silliness of silly people to-day, 
multitudes of them ; and it is the wisdom of wise men, 
not a few. Spiritualism, as intercourse with spirits, 
has its dangers, and in ancient times was helplessly 
prone to idolatry ; and it was on this account, prob- 
ably, that it was guarded, limited, and directed for the 
Jews by severe legislation. But like the circumnavi- 
gation of the globe, by which, with sailing straight on, 
man goes out on one side of the world, and returns 
on the other, so what was the peril of the ancient 
Jews religiously seems now to stand opposed to that 
idolatry of science by which the laws of nature are 
pleaded against the miracles of God. 

A strange land is that of which glimpses are got 
through Spiritualism ; a border-land between this 
world and the next ; a region whence spiritual causes 
can start material effects, and w^herein the laws of 
Nature are in some degree pliant to spiritual agents, 
and along the line of which, with strange consequences, 
spirit and matter interosculate through their respective 
laws ; a region where it is suddenly bright, unearthly 
light, and then as suddenly darkness, and wherein 
easily a man gets bewildered and befooled ; a realm 
where flits the will-o'-the-wisp, and where fog-banks 
roll, where often truth looks like illusion, and where, 
too, illusions are often taken for truth ; a field where 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 67 

light is reflected and refracted in a hundred ways, and 
so as to confuse sometimes like darkness itself; a land 
whence voices call, sweet and saintly perhaps, but lia- 
ble in a moment to be cut short like telegraphic wires, 
and to be continued perhaps by impostors ; a region 
of marvel, with gazing at which many persons have 
found themselves actuated as though by enchantment ; 
a realm in creation, which sceptics may ridicule, and 
which some good Christians may ignorantly deny, but 
in connection with which exist pathways of thought, 
and across which are distinctly discernible objects, 
which theology ought to know of. 

There is a proverb, that " any stick is good enough 
to beat a dog with." And the first stick out of the 
thicket of Spiritualism silences the argument short 
and sharp, and as incessant as the barking of a dog, 
which has been kept up so long, and especially in 
Germany, about the Order of Nature. 

By the rappings which come upon a table in the 
presence of a medium, the laws of nature call out 
against the philosophy of Baden Powell ; and they 
protest against the notion of Buckle, as to there being 
nothing new to be expected; and they deride the 
contemptuous self-complacency of Froude ; and they 
explode the dreary vantage-ground whence Biichner 
would deny the immortality of the soul. 

And now, perhaps, some one will wonder whether 
the writer thinks that his argument is a cure for 
scepticism. For every variety of scepticism, he cer- 
tainly does not think that it can be. There is scepti- 
cism which is a part of good sense. And of scepticism 
as a mental disease there are degrees, just as there are 



68 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

varioloid, small-pox, and confluent small-pox. There 
is a mild scepticism, which is simply the spirit of the 
age, and there is a scepticism which* is the result of 
undue constitutional tendency combined with the tem- 
per of the times ; and of the same thing, viewed as a dis- 
order, there is an extreme degree, which may be called 
confluent scepticism, and which mostly is incurable. It 
is more common in Paris than in this neighborhood. 
It is the state of a person with whom everything 
runs to doubt. It is a mental state in which a man 
might see a miracle, only to wonder whether it could 
be done again ; and who would not believe either, 
though one rose from the dead; and who, if he saw 
nine men out of ten raised from the dead, would only 
doubt nine times the more, as to whether the remain- 
ing tenth man could possibly be raised. This is con- 
fluent scepticism ; and it is what converts even rem- 
edies themselves into disease. 

There have certainly, however, been intellectual 
Christians, who had been caught at their studies by 
the spirit of scepticism and been manacled by the 
logic of science, and who had been unable to get 
themselves exorcised or liberated by the greatest di- 
vines of Protestantism, who yet have felt themselves 
freed by the first sound of those unaccountable rap- 
pings, and able to enter " into the temple walking and 
leaping, and praising God " ; being enabled to pray and 
trust and hope, by having learned that the Order of 
Nature is not everything, and that their souls may 
perhaps be free of it, and free for something higher. 
And these persons have continued in the same state 
of joy and freedom and holy hope, comparatively care- 



SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 69 

less as to whether the rappings had been spiritual or 
demoniac ; being only too happy with simply believ- 
ing them to be something supernatural, something to- 
wards a proof, that perhaps the heavens are not brass 
against us, and that the Order of Nature does not 
close about our souls like a living tomb. 

That the writer hereof should ever have had this to 
say, of his own knowledge, would have seemed to him 
in those days, when his faith was according to Mill's 
Analysis of the Human Mind, to be just as unlikely as 
his becoming a dancing dervish ; or a silent, barefooted 
Trappist ; or a turbaned hadji, squatting on the ground, 
and intent on the Koran, all day long, at Mecca; or a 
missionary to the ten lost tribes of Israel ; or a Eoman 
prelate pleading with cardinals, against the Devil's ad- 
vocate, and for the canonization of monks and nuns. 
But the world is wide, and the world of thought is 
wider still. And wider and wider still it grows, and at 
an ever-growing pace, in these days, when with many 
running to and fro, knowledge is increased; when 
every ancient history is being drawn forth, to be 
perused afresh by every light which can be got to 
bear upon it ; when every savage tribe is being re- 
spectfully solicited for its traditions ; when the mon- 
asteries of Mount Sinai and along the frontier of 
Christendom are yielding up their ancient parchments 
to enthusiastic scholars ; when the King of Siam sud- 
denly stands forth, an eminent astronomer, as the 
shadow of a great eclipse comes along to cross his king- 
dom ; when, too, the old foundations of Jerusalem are 
being carefully explored by an English Commission ; 
and when, also, the Great Pyramid is being questioned, 



70 SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL 

stone by stone, as to those singular secrets of which it 
is believed to be the depository. 

How much of what is knowledge to-day will be 
ignorance to-morrow ! And how certainly truths, 
which in this age are taken for errors, will subserve 
the pioneers of thought in the age to come ! But in 
this world, where light leads up to a wall of darkness, 
and where darkness yields indeed, but only recedes, 
scarcely could man dare to advise with man, but that 
certainly all things human must be rounded by the 
infinite mercy of God. 



MIEACLES AND DOCTEINE. 

OFTEN" a painful calculation of the orbit of a 
comet has been falsified, because of some heaven- 
ly bodies which had not been taken into the account, 
and therefore because of disturbing forces which had 
not been allowed for. And often an inquiry in phi- 
losophy has been futile, because of disturbing forces, 
which had not been allowed for from theology or his- 
tory. On the subject of supernaturalism, many per- 
sons are prejudiced by what they suppose to be their 
position as Christians. They lean on faith, as they 
think ; and lean so, as they think, on certain ancient 
facts of which Palestine was the scene. But there are 
other persons who not only have faith, but who are 
themselves, as it were, possessed by it. They say for 
themselves, like Peter, " Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God " ; and to them this revelation has 
been made, not indeed apart from all agencies of flesh 
and blood, but yet from the Father which is in heaven. 
And these believers find themselves upon a rock, joy- 
ful and curious spectators, who know, as they look 
around, that whatsoever things are true are really in 
their favor ; and that the gates of hell can never pre- 
vail against their standing-place, whatever hosts or 
forms or blasts may be let out. And certainly before 
all things, men have to be true; for never can the 



72 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

whole body be full of light, Christian or any other, 
unless the eye be single. 

• How often has there been willingness to have the 
subject of miracles grievously misunderstood rather 
than have it scrutinized ! But now, there is no really 
wise man but will say, " On any book which is worth 
reading, let us have all the light which we can. And 
if the Bible be, in any way, the word of God, and it 
be allowed us to read it, then let all the light of God's 
world come in upon it, and it will only be the plainer 
and the clearer. Truth forever, — ' the glorious gospel 
of the blessed God!'" 

And there are theological zealots, who think that 
they can help a sacred cause by means, which one 
side of the mind does not wish the other side to know 
of, by such means as the understanding would keep 
secret from the conscience. As connected with the 
Scriptures, how much has been said and done which 
was not candid ! But whether statesmen or cardinals, 
or preachers to the heathen, — no matter who they are, 
or under what pretext, — no man can sow the wind, 
and not leave the whirlwind to be reaped. Help out 
the cause of God, help it by any other means than the 
fairest, help it by the wisdom of this world ! Eemem- 
ber what happened to Uzza for putting forth his hand 
to support the ark of God, when that seat of mirac- 
ulous power seemed to shake upon the cart. If a 
cause be of God, it will not bear to be propped by the 
hand of a little faith. And for its support finally, no 
means will avail but what are holy. 

And now let the modern stumbling-block as to 
miracles, be still further considered than it was in the 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 73 

preceding chapter. The common presentation as to 
miracles is, that they are acts suspending the laws of 
nature ; that suspensions of tha laws of nature are 
impossible, except by the direct permission of God ; 
that God never would suspend his laws, except for a 
purpose greater than the laws themselves, — the reve- 
lation, that is to say, of himself ; and thus that all mira- 
cles reported outside of the Bible may be instantly 
denied. This is the argument of the best book of its 
kind, — that of Hugh Farmer on Miracles. But at the 
very beginning it begs the question, in its way of de- 
fining a miracle, as being a suspension of the laws of 
nature. When the apostles and prophets showed signs 
and wonders, or wrote about them, they never talked 
about suspending the laws of nature. And really, our- 
selves, we do not know but what we should call a mira- 
cle might be, not an act suspending some one law of 
nature, but simply an act using, in some new w^ay, 
another law very familiar perhaps, or very occult. 
The laws of nature, — this is a convenient phrase for 
ordinary use. And for the purposes of natural sci- 
ence, and restricted to such ends as those of geology, 
chemistry, and astronomy, investigation may properly 
proceed, on the supposition of the laws of nature. 
But when the suspension of the laws of nature is 
argued about, for purposes not geological or chemical, 
but divine, then it behooves us to think more exactly 
what it is which is talked of. 

A certain manifestation in nature is called a law ; 

but it is so called by simply a figure of speech, derived 

from the manner in which men mutually arrange their 

affairs. And yet often there is great stress laid on the 

4 



74 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

phrase " laws of nature " for just that very purpose, in 
regard to which chiefly it is objectionable. And this 
is clone as though it were supposed that, as the com- 
mandments were written in Horeb, one, two, three, 
ten ^commandments, on tables of stone, so laws of 
nature were devised and instituted by God, for shap- 
ing the void and formless world, — first, the law of at- 
traction, and then that of gravitation; and next one 
chemical affinity, and then another. For many and 
most purposes, we do well to speak of the laws of 
nature ; but there are some purposes, in view of which 
we are to remember that we talk about the laws of 
nature only by a figure of speech, and when indeed 
it would be better that we should be speaking of the 
properties of nature, the qualities of nature, or the 
spirit of nature. 

Suspension of the laws of nature ! The force of 
the phrase, as an objection to the possibility of a mira- 
cle, vanishes as soon as ever it is remembered that by 
the laws of nature, we do not really mean what can 
be broken one by one, or what can be broken at all ; 
do not at all mean enactments of God, but simply the 
spirit of nature. To define a miracle, then, as being 
an act by which a law of nature is suspended, is not 
according to true philosophy. Also, it is being wise 
beyond what is written ; or, rather, it is very unwise, 
and especially on the part of the advocates of Scrip- 
tural narratives; for the time when the miracles of 
the Bible were wrought, and when they were written 
of, was many hundreds of years before what is called 
the discovery of the laws of nature, and longer still, 
perhaps, before the invention of the phrase, " Suspen- 
sion of the laws of nature." 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 75 

One of the early miracles of Christianity was on a 
man " which sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the 
temple." Peter, having been entreated for something, 
did not say, " I hereby suspend, over thee and in thee, 
laws of nature, by number, one, nine, and thirteen; 
and now thou art well." And it has been very incau- 
tious work in controversy to commit Peter as though 
he had said such a thing, or anything at all like it. 
What Peter actually did say was, " Silver and gold 
have I none ; but such as I have give I thee : in the 
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." 
As a preliminary to this, however, is written what may 
have been directly connected with the miracle, that 
" Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, 
Look on us." There is no man but, as to quality, is 
more than all the laws of nature put together. And 
so it may well be that the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth may have been a symbol, an invocation, a 
channel of power which may have been natural indeed 
as to its ultimate effect in healing, but supernatural as 
to origin and intensity. 

The Jews and all the disciples of Christ regarded 
miracles as being of various degrees, and as differing 
in magnitude and decisiveness. And, in their defini- 
tion of miracles, Catholic theologians have degrees of 
greater and less, and always have had. In this man- 
ner of estimating miracles, there would seem to be in- 
volved another apprehension of them, than as though 
they must necessarily all of them argue equally the 
divine will, be all of them the pronunciation of God, 
and each one of them just as emphatic and distinct 
and peremptory as another. 



76 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

It is often argued as though miracles were credible 
only as happening among persons in covenant with 
God, through Abraham or through Christ. Yet the 
fullest account of prophetic vision in the Scriptures is 
connected with Balaam, a resident of Moab. And, of 
all the prophetic dreams in the Old Testament, the 
most wonderful was that with which the Egyptian 
Pharaoh was inspired, and which Joseph interpreted ; 
and those with which Nebuchadnezzar had his spirit 
troubled, and which were connected by Daniel with " a 
God in heaven that revealeth secrets." And at the 
birth of the Saviour, if wise men arrived at Jerusalem 
from the East, guided by a star spiritually discerned, 
it was because, apart from the stock of Israel, there 
were persons susceptible of miraculous instruction, and 
favored with it. Dean Stanley says truly, in his work 
on the Jewish Church, that, unlike the temper of the 
present age, the Scriptures are always ready to acknowl- 
edge divine inspiration outside of the chosen people, 
and so to admit the higher spirits of every age and 
every nation among the teachers of the Universal 
Church. 

It will help us to understand better the significance 
of a miracle among the Jews, if we remember that 
they were instructed not to follow always even an ac- 
knowledged miracle. "If there arise among you a 
prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a 
sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass 
whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after 
other gods which thou hast not known, and let us 
serve them ; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of 
that prophet or that dreamer of dreams ; for the Lord 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 77 

your God proveth you, to know whether you love the 
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your 
soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear 
him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, 
and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And 
that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to 
death, because he hath spoken to turn you away from 
the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land 
of Egypt." A miracle might, then, be acknowledged, 
and yet its cogency be denied. And even an acknowl- 
edged prophet was not to be followed in every direc- 
tion. In the Book of Exodus, we read that one miracle 
after another, which Moses showed to Pharaoh, the 
magicians repeated by their enchantments ; and that 
it was only when their power was surpassed by the 
fourth miracle of Moses that " the magicians said unto 
Pharaoh, This is the finger of God." And, as we learn 
from what happened to Ahab, even four hundred 
prophets might conjointly prophecy untruly, and that 
through a lying spirit in the mouth of them all, and 
of the Lord's direct permission. It would seem, too, 
that, simultaneously with the mission of Jesus, a mir- 
acle might be wrought, to which the apostles could 
demur. " And John answered him, saying, Master, we 
saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he follow- 
eth not us ; and we forbade him because he followeth 
not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not ; for there is 
no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can 
lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against 
us is on our part." 

It is to be noticed that a miracle, simply as a mira- 
cle, Jesus probably never wrought ; and Lightfoot, in- 



78 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

deed, says so absolutely, and perhaps correctly. Jesus 
works miracles out of pity, for love, as illustrations or 
corroborations of doctrine, but not for the sake of the 
marvellous merely. And further it would seem that 
when he was sometimes invited and sometimes chal- 
lenged to evince his Mesiahship by showing a sign, he 
never consented, but called that manner of testing 
him the craving of an evil and adulterous generation. 
His words, when trusted by a sick man, became a mir- 
acle of health ; when uttered in prayer at the tomb, 
quickened the dead with life ; and when breathed in 
blessing over five loaves, multiplied them into food for 
five thousand persons and twelve baskets full of frag- 
ments. Even the hem of his garment, a widow could 
touch in a crowd, and find herself healed with so 
doing. Signs and wonders went out from him as fast 
as words, and as easily, too, sometimes. From side to 
side of the sea of Galilee, and from Capernaum to Je- 
rusalem, he was to be tracked by his miracles. There 
was a miracle for the Eoman centurion, and a miracle 
for the poor Syrophenician woman ; but a miracle never 
for those who demanded it as such, for Pharisees 
and Sadducees tempting him, for Jews demanding of 
him, " What sign showest thou unto us ? " Once, in 
the midst of a great crowd, he was asked, " What sign 
showest thou, then, that we may see and believe thee ? 
what dost thou work ? " But, for answer, he asserted 
that his doctrine was greater than the miracle of man- 
na in the wilderness ; that persons to be converted 
would follow laws of the spirit, rather than the attrac- 
tion of a sign ; and that himself he was a sign and 
was also bread, and that more wonderful than the 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 79 

manna of the wilderness. It is consonant with what 
precedes that St. Paul classes miracles below teaching ; 
though of course it was not ordinary instruction, for 
which teachers were ranked next after prophets, — 
"And God hath set some in the church ; first, apostles ; 
secondarily, prophets ; thirdly, teachers ; after that, mir- 
acles ; then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diver- 
sities of tongues." 

A miracle may be convincing ; but evidently, at the 
best, it is not the best occasion of conversion. There 
is a happier, better reason for conviction about Christ 
than even seeing the greatest miracle with one's own 
eyes, or our Saviour would never have said to Thomas, 
as he felt of his hands and side, after his crucifixion 
and resurrection, " Thomas, because thou hast seen me, 
thou hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen, 
and yet have believed." And just as Moses forewarned 
the Jews against following the lead of every sign or 
wonder, so does Jesus Christ forewarn the Church: 
" There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and 
shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch, that, if 
it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." The 
thoughts of St. Paul were familiar with Providence as 
manifesting itself among Jews and Gentiles, as evin- 
cing itself in the world's conflicts, as summoning its 
subjects to put on the whole armor of God, for a fight 
of a wider meaning than they would perhaps well 
perceive, as being not against flesh and blood merely, 
furious Jews, tyrannical magistrates, or Caesars calling 
themselves gods : but as being " against principalities, 
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of 
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." 



80 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

And so, writing to the Thessalonians in the spirit of 
prophecy, he warns them of that wicked one to be re- 
vealed, " whose coming is after the working of Satan, 
with all power and signs and lying wonders." And 
St. John writes on the same understanding and to the 
same purpose : " Beloved, believe not every spirit, but 
try the spirits whether they are of God ; because many 
false prophets are gone out into the world." In the 
Book of Eevelation, we have the visions of one in 
the Spirit, of one who not merely saw further on than 
common eyes, but who discerned also the essential 
characters of coming powers and ages. And listening 
to the Apocalypse, as it is disclosed, we hear of how 
" the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet, 
that wrought miracles before him." And more dis- 
tinctly, too, we are told that there were to be expected 
" the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth 
unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world." 
Miracles actually to be looked for from the spirits of 
demons ! Let that be remembered. 

But here some persons may ask anxiously, " Can it 
be that there should be a miracle, any kind of mira- 
cle, and the worker of it not be approved of God ? Can 
there be a prophet ever, once in even a thousand or 
two thousand years, and he be a false man ? How 
shall we know the false prophet ? " To this it may be 
answered, that for all the ends of holiness and faith 
we may know them by the words of Christ, " Ye shall 
know them by their fruits." There is, too, a capability 
in man, which, with the quickening of the Holy Ghost, 
becomes discerning of spirits ; ability, that is, for judg- 
ing of what spirit a prophet's inspiration is. Lightfoot 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 81 

supposes that in the first age of the Church it was al- 
most impossible to distinguish between magical, dia- 
bolical spirits and their operations and the operations 
and utterances of the Holy Ghost ; but that the diffi- 
culty was remedied by there having been among the 
early disciples, a gift for the " discerning of spirits." It- 
may have been that that gift was specially imparted 
and specially effective for times, when almost it was 
possible for the very elect to be deceived. But now 
and always with Christians, for discerning false proph- 
ets, seducing spirits, and false teachers, the words of 
Christ — uttered, too, for this very purpose — are 
enough : " Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do 
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " 

It would be well for us, no doubt, to get back into 
the primitive feeling about the miracles of the Bible. 
It may be that really ourselves we falsify the miracles, 
by making them more peculiar than they are. It may 
be that we miss the meaning of a miracle, by thinking 
that miracles are not only improbable at present, but 
impossible, and one just as much so as another, the 
healing of the sick as the raising of the dead. And 
it is perhaps only with knowing how a false prophet 
might possibly have a miracle work its way through 
his nature, that we can even recognize the channel by 
which the Spirit flowed in upon Christ, not by measure, 
but as a stream of truth and miracles. In the Scrip- 
tures, then, we find that by our position as Christians 
we are not committed to a denial of the miraculous 
in any age ; and we also find that, indeed, the early 
Christians were taught to expect it, even aside from 
Christian uses. What, then, is the proof of Christian- 
4* F 



82 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

ity ? and what are the miracles as evidences ? The 
answers to these questions shall be in the words of 
others ; and they are all the better for the purpose, 
that they were not written for an exigency, or to meet 
any modern difficulty on the subject of miracles : and 
so there shall be no quotation here of the opinions of 
Arnold, Newman, and others of the present age. 

John Owen of the seventeenth century, in a manly 
tone, which gladdens the reader, says, if one would 
begin with the miracles as the foundations of Chris- 
tianity, that he can get no tolerable assurance that 
any such miracles were ever wrought. Does he doubt 
them then ? Owen doubt them ! No more than any 
person doub.ts the sun because he cannot touch it. 
Hear what he says further : " Many writers of the 
Scriptures wrought no miracles. And by this rule 
their writings are left to shift for themselves. Mira- 
cles, indeed, were necessary to take off all prejudices 
from the person that brought any new doctrine from 
God ; but the doctrine still evidenced itself. The 
apostles converted many where they wrought no 
miracle ; and, where they did so work, yet they for 
their doctrine, and not the doctrine on their account, 
was received. And the Scripture now hath no less 
evidence and demonstration in itself of its divinity 
than it had when by them it was preached." He 
adds, that they who do not receive the Bible on this 
ground will never receive it on any ground as they 
ought. Says his contemporary, Eichard Baxter : " I 
more sensibly perceive that the Spirit is the great wit- 
ness of Christ and Christianity to the world. And 
though the folly of fanatics tempted me long to over- 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 83 

look the strength of this testimony of the Spirit, while 
they placed it in a certain internal assertion or enthu- 
siastic inspiration, yet now I see that the Holy Ghost, 
in another manner, is the witness of Christ, and his 
agent in the world. The Spirit in the prophets was 
his first witness ; and the Spirit by miracles was the 
second ; and the Spirit by renovation, sanctincation, 
illumination, and consolation assimilating the soul to 
Christ and heaven, is the continued witness to all true 
believers. "And if any man have not the spirit of 
Christ, the same is none of his.' , Even as the rational 
soul in the child is the inherent witness or evidence 
that he is the child of rational parents." 

Baxter and Owen were men of other days than these, 
and ministers of another training than the ten thou- 
sand clergymen in England, who were lately made to 
tremble and petition their bishops, in consequence 
of a volume of " Essays and EeviewS," to which four 
or five of their fellows had been accessory. All this 
modern talk, about miracles being the foundation of 
Christianity, by one party, and about their being im- 
possible to be proved, by another party, — it would all 
have been but as the idle wind to Baxter and Owen. 
Ministers who knew of the rock on which the Church 
is founded, — they would have looked round them, 
on one side and on the other ; and they would have 
said together, " Christianity based on miracles ! 
you unspiritual brethren ! The miracles of the New 
Testament impossible to be proved in a court of law ? 
So they are ; and we acknowledge it willingly. But 
they are true nevertheless, a thousand times true" 
But Baxter and Owen were theologians, eminent and 



84 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

acknowledged, in an age when it was not strange to 
remember that the word theology means the sci- 
ence of God. They were men for whom there was a 
world of spirit just as surely as a world of matter. 
They were men of learning, and also they were men 
of wide and various experience in the world. And 
they were men, too, of a rarer wisdom than is ever 
caught from either books or fellow-creatures, men of 
spiritual insight, and men who knew, or thought that 
they could know, " the things of God by the Spirit 
of God." 

Baden Powell regards miracles as hard to be be- 
lieved by the scientific mind, and as becoming more 
and more incredible to the world at large. And he 
says expressly : " If miracles were in the estimation of 
a former age among the chief supports of Christianity, 
they are at present among the main difficulties and 
hindrances to its acceptance " ; and Eenan and others 
say so too. To this Baxter and Owen, only that their 
time of speaking in this world is over, might be sup- 
posed to answer : " To the scientific mind miracles are 
incredible. Nor is this to be wondered at, since the 
natural man reeeiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God ; for unto him they are foolishness. But, to him 
that is spiritual, they are the wisdom of God and the 
power of God ; for they are not only reported to the 
world by history, but also by Christians they are sus- 
ceptible of being spiritually discerned." And such a 
statement would be legitimate and sound ; for what 
cannot be quite proved in one court by direct testi- 
mony may be abundantly demonstrable in another 
court, by circumstantial and presumptive evidence. 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. . 85 

And what can never be proved to a scientific demon- 
stration, a man may yet be insane if he does not be- 
lieve. And things which would be utterly impossible 
to a man of the earth, earthy, even though his earthi- 
ness were of the very finest kind, and energetic as a 
tiger's, and sagacious as an elephant's, — these same 
things might become abundantly credible to him, as 
soon as ever his earthiness had been touched by " the 
second Adam," the " quickening spirit," " the Lord 
from heaven." And about God, though viewed, as 
often he is, as being a mighty machinist, heartless 
really, though delighting in work, there are things 
which would seem to be very unlikely, but which are 
easily credited by a man, who, because of his having 
been reached by the Spirit, has felt himself " in sub- 
jection unto the Father of spirits." For, whatever 
the eternal necessity of things may be, it can never 
be supposed, before the throne of grace, if there be 
one, that necessarily men and butterflies must be 
alike. 

But now, because the thing has got to be done, it 
must be done, but yet it is not without reluctance 
and even some pain ; for Eenan is a man of some fine 
characteristics, though not perhaps, in all respects, of 
the very happiest schooling in life. Eeferring to the 
earlier chapters of the Book of Acts, in his volume on 
the Apostles, he says, " It would be unjust to dwell on 
anything we may see to be shocked at, in this sad page 
of the origin of Christianity. For vulgar hearers, the 
miracle proves the doctrine ; for us, the miracle causes 
the doctrine to be forgotten. When a belief has con- 
soled and ameliorated humanity, it is excusable for 



86 . MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

having employed proofs proportioned to the weakness 
of the public, whom it addressed." There are persons 
who would call this French sentiment. There are 
others who would utter words about it, keen enough 
and true, but words also of crimination and condemna- 
tion. But that shall not be done here. Christianity 
is an excusable imposture, according to Eenan. That 
Christianity is an imposture, possibly a man may be- 
lieve honestly ; but that, as an imposture, it is excusa- 
ble because of what has happened with it, — for the 
supposition of such a thing as this, there are no easy 
words to comment with which are strong enough. Let 
the reader peruse again the words of Baxter and Owen, 
and thank God that he can so readily sweeten his 
mind, after such a sentiment as has been submitted to 
him. 

Miracles are so intimately connected with the per- 
sonality of Jesus and with the lives of his apostles, 
that it would seem as though it might be impossible 
for a sane man, should he bethink himself, to say that 
the miracles are false, while Jesus is true ; or to say 
that Paul could write as he did out of a mind either 
crazy or deceitful. Concurrently with a belief in 
Christ, as a manifestation of the Highest, a man in- 
deed may say : " Christ Jesus I bow to, as a Bevelation 
started from somewhere between me and the unknown 
God ; and he is the highest, holiest manifestation, 
amidst primeval darkness which I have to trust to. 
As to the miracles connected with Christ, it is so that 
I cannot understand them, that I cannot conscien- 
tiously say, in the proper meaning of the word "be- 
lief/ that I do believe them. It may be that consti- 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. - 87 

tutionally I am unfitted for a belief in the marvellous, 
just as many men are disqualified for music and math- 
ematics ; and it may be that some time my mind will 
open to light, which at present it is closed against ; 
and, should that light ever come, it vdll be welcome 
and blessed." A man may be in such a position as 
that mentally, and be a very good Christian perhaps. 
But there would seem to be a w^all of separation be- 
tween him and the man w T ho denounces the miracles 
of the New Testament as being impostures. For the 
latter person really can find in Christianity but very 
little which* is worthy of respect ; vitiated to his mind, 
as it must nearly all of it be, by its connections with 
what he supposes to be imposture, — that is, if he be 
a man who can be justified in reasoning at all on such 
a subject as Christianity. 

In illustration of the subject . of Christianity, as 
vouched for by miracles, may be considered the follow- 
ing passage from a homily by St. John Chrysostom, 
about the beginning of the fifth century : — 

" Tell me, if it were at your choice either to raise 
the dead in the name of Christ,, or to die for the sake of 
his name, which would you wish to do ? Would you 
not certainly prefer the latter ? And if there were of- 
fered to you either the power of changing fodder into 
gold, or a will which could despise wealth like fodder, 
would not you choose the latter of the two ? And 
rightly would you do so, because men would be best 
persuaded in that manner ; for, if they saw you change 
fodder into gold, like Simon, they would w r ish to share 
the miraculous power with you ; and so their love of 
money would grow upon them. But, if ever they 



88 MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 

could see gold despised like fodder, they would soon 
be cleansed from their disease. You see, then, that it 
is a good life which avails most." 

And, now, a very different man from the golden- 
mouthed bishop, an ancient Eabbi, Simeon Ben Lac- 
hish, from his point of view would remark : — 

" The proselyte is more beloved by the holy, blessed 
God than the whole crowd that stood before Mount 
Sinai. For unless they had heard the thunderings, 
and seen the flames and lightnings, the hills trembling 
and the trumpets sounding, they had not received the 
law. But the proselyte hath seen nothing of all this, 
and yet hath come in, devoting himself to the holy, 
blessed God, and hath taken upon him the kingdom of 
heaven." 

And here may come in a quotation from the Pneu- 
matology of Heinrich Stilling, as corroborating some- 
what indirectly, but from the fact of experience, the 
position of Baxter and Owen, as to the relative influ- 
ence of miracle and doctrine. After saying that an 
apparition may cause a panic, but seldom or never 
operate a conversion, he adds, " I know instances of 
professed materialists and freethinkers having posi- 
tively seen spirits, so that they were convinced that it 
was the soul of one of their deceased acquaintances ; 
and yet they continued to doubt their own immortal- 
ity and self-consciousness." 

From a very different quarter, very rich, however, in 
psychological information, may be adduced the follow- 
ing testimony of Emmanuel Swedenborg : " A sixth 
law of the Divine Providence is that man should not 
be reformed by external mediums, but by internal me- 



MIRACLES AND DOCTRINE. 89 

diums ; by external mediums means by miracles and 
visions, also by fears and punishment ; by internal 
mediums means by truths and goods from the word, 
and from the doctrine of the Church, and by looking 
to the Lord ; for these mediums enter by an internal 
way, and cast out the evils and falses which reside 
within : but external mediums enter by an external 
way, and do not cast out evils and falses, but shut 
them in. Nevertheless, man is further reformed by ex- 
ternal mediums, provided he has been before reformed 
by internal mediums.' , 

Not in controversy about miracles, as disconnected, 
isolated facts, can there ever be found the truth about 
them. But let the denier of miracles study pneumat- 
ics, and learn the marvels which will be disclosed to 
him : and let the mere dogmatic asserter of miracles 
explore the philosophy to which they belong ; and then 
the two will find themselves meeting on peaceful 
ground, amazed, indeed, but not lost in amazement. 



MIEACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

AND with the event just now supposed a new era 
would probably begin for the Church. There is 
nobody living who can read the Bible as he ought to 
do. If he be not a Christian, he reads it with at least 
some small remains of the hostility, which was wak- 
ened in his predecessors by the hatred with which they 
were once pursued. And if he be a Christian, he reads 
it as though it were a book by itself; as though there 
had been no time anywhere else, while the ages of 
Jewish history were slowly passing ; as though, body 
and soul, the ancient inhabitants of Palestine had 
been such a peculiar people as that poetry, with them, 
had been altogether another thing from poetry in 
Greece ; and as though the prophets of Homer, Plato, 
and Pausanias were so utterly different in constitution 
and purpose from the prophets of the Scriptures as 
that even the false prophets of the Bible could not 
possibly be likened, in any way, to the prophets of the 
Iliad, or of the Travels in Greece. Even the heathen- 
ism denounced in the Scriptures is held, not in vener- 
ation certainly, but yet in such a reserved, # conservative 
temper as that hardly ever does any one think to illus- 
trate it by the heathenism of Hindostan or Africa. 
Analogy is rarely thought of as being possible between 
the demoniacs of the New Testament and " the suffer- 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 91 

ers " in Salem, some two hundred years ago, or the 
people of strange experiences lately, at Chambery in 
Savoy, and more recently at Morzine. And notwith- 
standing the little philosophy which is accessible on 
the subject of prophecy, never perhaps to any formal 
commentator on the Scriptures has it occurred to illus- 
trate the manner in which, characteristically, as it 
would appear, often the prophets of the Old Testament 
were convulsed, by any reference to the peculiarity 
which caused the society of Friends to be called Qua- 
kers. It is as though it were thought that even the 
devils, mentioned in the New Testament, would be 
profaned by having anything modern likened to them. 

More and more the tendency has been to read the 
Scriptures by the least light possible of a spiritual 
character ; but sea and land, the while, have been 
compassed to learn about the mustard-tree, or as to 
leprosy, or as to how wine was made, and cakes were 
baked, anciently, or as to the niceties of the old law 
on polygamy and divorce. And it seems like a daring 
statement, when one reads, in the grave work of an 
English dignitary, that prophetic power has existed 
outside of the churches, both Jewish and Christian. 
And it has seemed to be very anomalous, when it has 
been hinted, by the way of comparing small things 
with great, that there may possibly be some analogy 
between the ancient "laying-on of hands" and the 
processes which were stumbled upon by Mesmer. 

And yet to demur to illustrations of the Scriptures 
from psychological experiences, modern or mediaeval, 
is really about the same thing as though one should 
hold that Miriam's triumphal ode, on the shore of the 



92 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

Eed Sea, could never have been made audible by such 
breath as mortals draw ; or as though one should deny 
that the harp to which David sang from inspiration 
could possibly have been such an instrument as might 
have been bought in a market-place. Such confusion 
often do men seriously and solemnly, — and all the 
more readily because of the solemnity which they are 
under, — such confusion do men make between a mere 
channel and the water in it, which really constitutes 
the stream. As Jesus ascended from Jericho to Jeru- 
salem, a whole multitude accompanied him, with their 
hosannas " for all the mighty works which they had 
seen." This action of theirs the Pharisees would have 
had Jesus rebuke. " And he answered and said unto 
them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace 
the stones would immediately cry out." And if this had 
happened, as it might have done, it would not have 
been that the stones would have become adorable, or 
that they would have remained anything else than com- 
mon stones ; but simply it would have been made plain 
and memorable that the Holy Spirit w T hich was shed 
abroad there, can make anything vocal, though per- 
haps the stubborn heart of a man may be almost the 
last thing to be pliant to its promptings. 

On the subject of miracles it is very curious how 
men dogmatize sometimes ; for a man will argue on 
behalf of the miracles of the Bible as though they 
were simply things of history, and almost of yester- 
day, in a neighboring city, having no eye for the long 
perspective of history, and having also no more idea 
of the history of the Bible, and the books which com- 
pose it, than the wicked Ahab had of geology and the 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 93 

formation of mica slate ; while another man in at- 
tacking the credibility of miracles does it as though, 
" by the grace of God," he were a king of thought, 
with a right to legislate for his own wants in argu- 
ment, and to raise up and put dow^n witnesses at will. 
This man, however, is essentially of the same char- 
acter with his humbler brother, who holds simply, 
" Everybody is as good as any other body, and is just 
as much entitled to an opinion ; and let him have it 
and say it." 

A man must have some sense of the miraculous be- 
fore miracles can be to him what they ought to be. 
He must believe them himself aright before he is fit 
to convince others. And to argue them simply by 
the way of testimony and history, as is commonly 
done, does more mischief than good, and has often, 
with pressure, roused a conscientious antagonism of 
unbelief. Now and then a man is to be heard who 
takes credit to himself for believing in the miracles 
of the Scriptures, while actually his belief is just 
what he might have for the measurement of Nineveh, 
should it ever be published, or for the locality of the 
pool of Siloam. "Believing in miracles, is believing 
in history," says the confident man, " and when I say 
history, I mean the Bible." But now history is not 
exactly the same thing to one man as it is to another, 
nor to the same man is it the same thing at all times. 
And miracles, as a subject, need for their appreciation, 
not the temper of the market-place, nor the tone of 
the council-chamber, but the spirit of a worshipper, 
who has been admitted further into the temple than 
the fore-court, and who, if he has never seen inside 



94 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

of the holy of holies, has yet distinctly recognized 
the veil of separation, which hangs before it. 

What constitutes a prophet ? How did the word of 
the. Lord come ? and by what faculty was it received ? 
How did the Spirit rest upon a man ? What exactly 
was the state of a, man when he saw visions ? And 
what precisely was it which happened when a man 
had a revelation in a dream ? Surely, these are ques- 
tions which theology ought to be ready to answer any- 
where, in a moment ; and especially, as at least, the 
answers have always been latent in the Scriptures 
themselves. And yet there are theologians by pro- 
fession, who are very impatient of such inquiries as 
these, who yet would be scandalized at being thought 
to be impatient Christians. The pneumatology of the 
Scriptures, from one cause and another, is utterly un- 
known, and even unsuspected by many persons, who 
perhaps would be ardent students in it, but for the 
spiritual twilight of our day, occasioned by the long, 
low, dense cloud of anti-supernaturalism, which has 
been passing over us. Often in controversies about 
miracles it would be ludicrous, only that it is sad, to 
see and know that on neither side have the opponents 
a right to any opinion whatever, any more than if they 
were two unlettered Celts arguing about the binomial 
theorem. 

And among even the assailants of miracles as 
being credible, there is that difference of opinion 
which argues that it is not because of broad daylight 
that they act, but really because, being intellectually 
active, they have been unable to sleep through this 
long " eclipse of faith." Eenan thinks that visions 



MIKACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 95 

and prophecies are as much exceptional to order, and 
as incredible as material miracles. But Baden Powell 
does not think so. He would have been perplexed 
and almost shocked by a miracle involving atoms of 
dirt, or which might have seemed to compromise 
chemistry, as in the healing of a sick man, or the 
multiplication of, loaves and fishes by Jesus ; but 
readily he would have credited visions and prophecies, 
as the result of spiritual interference with the spirits 
of men. 

In the immortality of the soul a man may believe 
for fifty years, and in the fifty-first year, with " new- 
ness of life " may find that for the half of a century 
he had been believing with his fancy only, and not 
his heart. And after illness or great trouble often a 
man finds that, in some way or other, he has become 
" a new creature," because of the new book into which, 
for him, the old Bible would seem to have changed. 
And in this world's darkness there have been leaders 
of the people religiously, who, because of their having 
been enlightened from above, have been ready to hum- 
ble themselves in the dust, not only before the Lord, 
but in the congregation of their fellow-creatures, be- 
cause of their having spoken of "the things of the 
Spirit," without having personally known of the 
Spirit, and who would have wished to have said with 
Isaiah, " Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am 
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a 
people of unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen the 
King, the Lord of hosts." 

Miracles presuppose a miraculous world, a world 
of spirit, from which, now and then, may be manifested 



96 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

" signs." But if that world be itself denied, or if the 
means or channels for any effect from it be disbelieved, 
or if the sense for it be asleep, men may talk about 
miracles, and may believe them, as they believe in the 
ring of Scipio Barbatus, which is said to have been 
found in his tomb. But believing in that manner, 
they do not believe miracles aright, do not believe 
them, as being what exactly they call themselves, 
which is "signs." Miracles are " signs." And signs 
presuppose a quarter whence they are made, and a 
mind which makes them. In the ISTew Testament, at 
least, miracles are " signs," — signs of a presence 
which could not itself be borne perhaps, — signs of a 
something which of itself would be too vast for hu- 
man comprehension. 

But the significance of miracles in this manner, is 
exactly what has been generally surrendered to the as- 
saults of science. Theology grown timid from many 
causes, and feeble too, has allowed young audacious 
science to strip it, almost without resistance. And 
outside of the Catholic Church, the utmost which it 
attempts to-day is to entreat scientific men, for the 
love of God, to spare some of the miracles of the Bi- 
ble, and to let believers believe them, because of vari- 
ous ingenious theories, by which miracles may con- 
ceivably be true. And this it does very often, without 
remembering that these various and ingenious theories 
are opposed to one another, and do not need the unbe- 
lief 8f an enemy to expose and quash them. 

Angel or vision, spirit or demon, dream or impulse, 
— none of these things ever come into this world, to 
anybody, from out of another world : that is what the 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 97 

common philosophy of the day says ; and it is what 
generally, among Protestants, theology agrees to, though 
with many curious make-shifts for saving its dignity, 
and with one reservation. And the reservation which 
theology makes for itself, before succumbing to the 
imperious scepticism of science, is merely this : that in 
a certain country, at certain times there may have been 
miracles, though provided for, perhaps, from the begin- 
ning of the world in some curious way, by which 
science need not feel itself compromised, except very 
slightly or almost not at all. And this is theology, is 
it ? Modern theology, it may be, but it is wofully 
weak. And it is no wonder that the miracles of the 
Bible are regarded as untenable accounts, and as 
scarcely worthy of an argument, by young students, 
in whose eyes they can be, at the best, but like relics 
descended from a mighty past, dead now and over ; 
and vouched for also in merely the same traditional 
way as the holy curiosities in the treasury of some 
Catholic church in France or Italy, — a skull perhaps, 
a piece of a cloak, an old shoe, a little finger, a lock of 
hair, and other things, for which, living connection and 
vital significance have long since ceased. 

During the last three or four generations, the mira- 
cles narrated in the Holy Scriptures have been de- 
fended, variously defended, ingeniously defended, hotly 
defended, defended with lofty scorn, and defended with 
erudite contempt ; but they have not proportionately 
been preached upon, or expounded, or gloried in. And 
it is a very singular, significant fact, that latterly the 
subject of miracles has been avoided by genius as 
something unattractive, and by holy meditation as 
5 g 



98 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

something uncongenial. The defence of miracles has 
been free and multitudinous; but then it has been 
made much in the same way as the doors of a church 
might be barred against a mob, and in much the same 
temper. Miracles have been defended against the 
spirit of the times, by men of the same spirit them- 
selves. And by the very way and tone in which mir- 
acles have been defended, there has been drawn upon 
them a keener and more concentrated attack. 

The arms with which Christianity is assailed to-day 
on account of the miracles connected with the gospel, 
the ingenious arguments against them, have nearly all 
been got out of Protestant armories, and are actually 
the same weapons which Protestants, during two or 
three centuries, have devised and welded, and used 
against the credibility of the miracles of the Catholic 
Church. "Anything outside of the order of Nature, 
must be a miracle inside of the Church, or else it must 
be the work of the old enemy of the Church, and 
therefore, in a way, is still a testimonial to the Church/* 
And not a little of the controversy between the Cath- 
olic Church and Protestants, has presupposed this 
false issue. And always it has been done to the detri- 
ment of Protestantism ; for a man cannot fight, any 
more than he can sleep in a cramped attitude, without 
being the worse for it. Perverted by philosophy some- 
times, and heated by controversy, it has often happened 
that Protestantism has defined miracles not quite right- 
ly, as to both their nature and significance ; and thus 
it has chanced that while combating the credibility 
of the medieval and modern miracles of the Catholic 
Church, the leaders of Protestantism have actually 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 99 

exposed their own position, as Christian believers. 
And all the while really, in one place or another, age 
after age, have been occurring, among Protestants 
themselves things of the same nature as have sufficed 
at Rome for the canonization of saints, or for evidence 
of close communion with the spiritual world. 

In the seventeenth century lived an Irish gentleman 
of the name of Greatrex, who healed diseases in a 
manner which would be commonly understood as be- 
ing miraculous. The evidence about him is what 
would be supported by Evelyn and Jeremy Taylor. 
But now, what that man did would suffice in the Con- 
gregation on Eites at Eome for the canonization of 
fifty saints. And in the life of the Seeress of Pre- 
vorst, within the present century, were instances of 
intercourse with spirits, so many and of such a nature 
as would have made her the glory of any Order of 
Nuns for ages. It is not in the Catholic Church only 
that people sometimes are pious and clairvoyant both ; 
and there have been many Protestants, and especially 
while in suffering, who have had spiritual experiences 
which, in the life of St. Philip Neri, would have count- 
ed for additional graces. There is a book entitled, 
" Devotional Somnium, or a Collection of Prayers and 
Exhortations, uttered by Miss Eachel Baker, in the 
City of New York, in the winter of eighteen hundred 
and fifteen, during her abstracted, unconscious state." 
The account of this Presbyterian girl presupposes a 
spiritual peculiarity like what constituted, not indeed 
the saintship, but the marvellousness of St. Bridget, in 
relation to whom there is a folio volume, in Latin, 
printed at Munich, in the seventeenth century, edited 



100 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

by a Cardinal, and enriched by various historical, liter- 
ary, and philosophical illustrations, — " Celestial Kev- 
elations of the Seraphic Mother, St. Bridget, of Sweden, 
the Foreordained Bride of Christ, and the Foundress 
of the Order of her Bridegroom, the most Holy Sav- 
iour." 

It has been the misfortune of Protestantism in its 
controversy with the Catholic Church, that it has had 
to argue the subject of miracles, as authorization of 
doctrine, while itself suffering, by way of circumscrip- 
tion, from " philosophy falsely so called," or only in 
part ascertained. Twelve years ago, there was pub- 
lished in Paris, a Life of St. Joseph of Cupertino. It 
was preceded and accompanied by a loud challenge to 
Protestants, on account of certain marvels which had 
happened in connection with the saint. The Protes- 
tant notice of the work was simply a jeering, flat de- 
nial of the marvels which seemed, however, to be well 
fortified by documents as to their credibility. And 
yet actually to that Catholic challenge it might have 
been answered, that, apart from goodness, the marvels 
for which St. Joseph of Cupertino was canonized are 
not peculiar to the Catholic Church, but are incidental 
to human nature, as is the truth to the knowledge of 
the writer hereof, and of perhaps a whole host of other 
Protestants. Dreams, visions, and impulses, of an ex- 
traordinary character, are of infinite interest to Catho- 
lics, religiously ; but during the last hundred years or 
more, to nearly all enlightened Protestants, they have 
been, at best, but the halves of " singular coincidences," 
or they have been " queer things," and things not to be 
named or even thought of respectfully, for fear of 
science and public opinion. 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 101 

On this subject of miracles, through controversy 
with the Catholic Church, there is another way in 
which Protestantism has suffered. Any statement as 
to miracles by a Catholic is what has been prepared 
and indorsed for him by the concentrated authority, 
learning, experience, and wisdom of his Church. 
Whereas, any statement by a Protestant is merely 
what an individual can best make. And thus it hap- 
pens that Protestants argue about miracles in different 
ways, and in ways which are destructive one of an- 
other; and by the conflict of which, generally, faith 
is weakened and bewildered. But perhaps, any time, 
if the average sentiment of Protestants on the subject 
of miracles and the Catholic Church could have got 
embodied and expressed, it would have been something 
very different from that of their foremost controversial- 
ists. But such an expression of opinion, of course, 
could have been only conglomerate and not homo- 
geneous. For Protestants are people of varieties and 
characteristics known, all of them, to no man living, 
perhaps. They are Lutherans, Calvinists, Episcopa- 
lians, and Presbyterians ; Unitarians, Moravians, Qua- 
kers, Baptists, Methodists ; people who eat, and drink, 
and work, and go to church, but who never think seri- 
ously ; people who never go to church, except now and 
then in some regions, to assure themselves that they 
are Protestants ; and people who go to church for duty, 
and who, at home, think so differently and so sweetly 
otherwise from what they have been taught, that they 
are an astonishment to themselves ; Fellows of the 
Royal Society of London ; English peasants, who have 
never been outside of their native counties ; occupants 



102 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

of Swiss valleys, like the Ban de la Koche ; and suf- 
fering, sorrowing pietists, in such spots of dense hea- 
thenism as exist in London. And out of all these 
classes, the aggregate expression would probably have 
been, " You Catholics are not afraid of science, for in- 
side of your countries it can only speak by permission 
of the Church. But with us Protestants, it is differ- 
ent. And somehow, our scholars can neither think, 
nor speak, nor feel, nor see, except w T ith a twist, which 
they got in college. About science we generally know 
nothing, but we hope the best. However, we do know 
about facts. And your miracles, if that be what you 
call them, — things like some of your miracles, — have 
always been as common among us as they are with 
you ; only that we do not think as much about them ; 
nor have w^e either any authority among us to inter- 
pret, and magnify, and publish them." 

Much of the salt of the Church has been what 
never was dropped from the pulpit. And there have 
been quiet, reverential, God-fearing peasants, believ- 
ing in ghost-stories, who, simply because of their sense 
of the supernatural, have done more for Christianity, 
without one word for it intentionally, than many a 
doctor of divinity with even a quarto volume. 

Of all the mistakes committed by scholarship, there 
is none worse than to forego sympathy with the 
ways of unlettered thought, and to feel contempt for 
the multitude. The primitive instincts are the best 
part of our lives ; and household phraseology is the 
better part of our speech. A philosopher cannot de- 
liberately and contemptuously forego communion with 
the poor, without being liable to drift away into 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 103 

vagaries and ineptitudes of thought ; and especially 
and manifestly has this been the case on the subject 
of the Supernatural. 

There is in existence a hymn-book, and of no ob- 
scure use either, in its day, in the preface to which it 
is said, that the hymns have been made to conform 
to modern philosophy, by the words, soul, and spirit in 
them having been changed into mind, reason, and 
understanding. Philosophy to-day is not so widely 
different from that modern philosophy as it might 
seem to be, by its affecting strongly the words " soul " 
and " spirit," and even making them fashionable ; for 
always that philosophy will have us understand by 
spirit a something largely void of spiritual character- 
istics, as known alike to both Jews and Greeks. This 
emptying the word " spirit " of its meaning is in ac- 
cordance with the anti-supernaturalism of our times. 
And, in the same manner, the Scriptures have been 
discharged of much which would imply preternatural 
connections for man. This, however, is a subject for 
further and fuller consideration. 

Very largely a man can find in the Scriptures only 
what he is prepared to see. This is true of any book. 
But over and above those reasons which rule for 
a legal document, there are others which specially 
govern as to such subjects as are involved in an ear- 
nest study of the Scriptures. Before a man can be 
open to the full meaning of words which were written 
by persons within the sphere of the Holy Spirit, he 
himself must have been touched by that Spirit. That 
touch is what is said sometimes to throw an ignorant, 
disorderly backwoodsman into convulsions, because of 



104 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

the manner in which body and spirit are laced to- 
gether. But it is different with a quiet, orderly per- 
son, studious of truth, and seeking for light. And 
when the Spirit reaches such a person it affects him 
like a great thought, like a flash of light in his soul, 
from above, and with the coming of which he feels 
at once humiliated and exalted, and as being what 
truly he is, — a creature in affinity with the Creator, 
and a child on earth suddenly found, and touched, 
and drawn by the Father in heaven. 

By argument merely an anti-supernaturalist may be 
convinced that he is not justified in denying the 
miracles of the Scriptures. And by argument, per- 
haps, he may be made even to believe them histori- 
cally. But for making him believe them aright, be- 
lieve them to the best purpose, argument is not 
enough. To believe miracles with the intellect is one 
thing, and to believe them with the heart is another. 
A true believer believes them with both head and 
heart. In these times to propose converting an un- 
believer to Christianity, as is often attempted, by sim- 
ply historical argument, long drawn out, as to the 
reality and authority of miracles, is about the same 
thing as though, in the case of a priest losing his 
faith, it should be proposed to revive him spiritually 
by clothing him with surplice, bands, and beretta, and 
reading to him a lecture on apostolic succession. 

According to the Psalmist, " The fool hath said in 
his heart, There is no God." His atheistic folly may 
be corrected, to a certain extent, by a good theologian. 
And the fool may be made logically to see and know 
that there must be a God. But he can have his heart 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 105 

revive from its atheistic numbness only with waiting 
and humility, and by the healing influence of that 
Spirit w T hich indeed is the God " in whom we live and 
move and have our being/' which makes ministers out 
of angels, and which perfects praise out of the mouth 
of babes ; which gets itself glorified as to its purposes, 
by even the wrath of man ; and which, reaching us as 
Christians is the Spirit which bears witness with our 
spirits that we are the children of God ; and which, 
blending with our spirits, helps our infirmities, and 
prays in our prayers ; and which manifests its strength 
in man the most, wdien man himself is at his weakest. 

A Christian believer being of bad habits may be per- 
suaded to reform his manners ; but it is not at the will 
of either himself or his advisers, that he shall have 
what, however, will surely come, with perseverance, — 
joy in the Holy Ghost. 

A philosophical materialist may have been con- 
vinced of the system, which is the opposite of what 
he had held ; but yet, not at all as a sequence to his 
reasoning, and altogether really apart from his logic, 
it may flash upon him that he is not only a spirit 
clothed in matter, but that also he is a spirit in a 
spiritual world, a spirit open to he knows not what ; 
but certainly, if anything be certain, open to the Holy 
Ghost ; open to the gentle approach of the God under 
whose supremacy he came into being, and began to 
know of hope and fear, and of the struggle between 
virtue and vice. 

If a creature of yesterday be to meet what is from 
all eternity, if what at its very best is folly is to be 
noticed, however distantly, by infinite wisdom, it can 
5* 



106 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

only be because wisdom from all eternity must be of 
infinite condescension, and willing even to " bow the 
heavens and come down " ; and because, now and al- 
ways, as to true worshippers, " the Father seeketh such 
to worship him." 

And on the subject of miracles, argument, however 
acute it may be, is not everything. A man may be 
convinced of a mistake without therefore being filled 
with wisdom. And a man, by argument, may be 
made to feel that he has no right to deny the reality 
of the miracles of the Scriptures. But before they 
san become to him signs as well as wonders, there 
must be open in him an apprehension to which they 
signify ; and there must be waiting in him a state co- 
mingled of expectation, awe, and faith, to which they 
answer. 

After Thomas the apostle, who could not believe on 
testimony, had been satisfied, by the details of a per- 
sonal interview, that his Lord was alive again, after 
his crucifixion, death, and burial, "Jesus saith unto 
him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast 
believed : blessed are they that have not seen and yet 
have believed." By this text, not a little witticism 
and worldly wise remark has been started, as though 
it had been a sentiment devised for proselytizing pur- 
poses. Whereas, simply it would mean that blessed 
were they who could believe in his resurrection, on 
good testimony ; because of their having souls larger 
than what might suffice for a detective policeman ; 
because of their being of a temper which could possi- 
bly believe in a miracle, without seeing it ; because of 
their not being too hard of heart ; because of their 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 107 

knowing that the world is governed not only by 
magistrates like Caiaphas and Pilate, but by author- 
ities and powers, invisible indeed, but higher still than 
they, by the ministration of angels, and by God Most 
High ; and because of their being of a spirit, informed 
by the experiences of their people ; — hopeful on ac- 
count of their having Abraham to their father, and 
from the expectations, with which prophetically they 
had been inspired as to a Messiah ; and ready in an 
hour of darkness to trust the future, because of what 
Elijah had been, and Daniel had been proved. And 
perhaps, also, this further thought may have been in- 
volved in those words of the Lord, — that blessed 
were they who, because of what they knew of Jesus, 
and because of what they had felt of his transcendent 
spirit, and because of their sense of him as the Holy 
One, could readily believe that his soul was not to be 
left among souls below, and that indeed by death " it 
was not possible that he should be holden." 

But there are persons who say, with many airs and 
much emphasis, " What have I to do with the past ? 
Let the dead past be buried with the dead. I am a 
child of the present." And anything more derogatory 
to his manhood could anybody well say ? A child of 
the present ! That is exactly what a monkey is. But 
all the more that a man is a man, the more truly is he 
not only the child of the present time, but the grand- 
child of the last century ; and also a descendant of the 
ages which were before Luther and Cranmer, and be- 
fore William the Conqueror, and before Justinian with 
his Pandects, and before Plato and Homer, and before 
Christ, and before the captivity of the Jews, and be- 



108 MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 

fore Moses, and before Abraham was. A monkey may- 
chatter to-day, and does, as monkeys chattered thou- 
sands of years ago. But no man to-day speaks exactly 
as anybody did a hundred years ago. There is no man 
but speaks by his connections with almost every de- 
cade of every century of recorded time. And the bet- 
ter he speaks, the more widely does the man evince 
what his connections are, with Saxons, Normans, 
Danes, Britons, Bomans, Greeks, with France and 
Spain, with Arabia and Persia. A man cannot well 
even order his dinner, but in words which connect 
him not only with the cooks of to-day, but with the 
ancient Germans in their forests, with the Normans 
of a thousand years ago, and with Britons, ages before 
Julius Csesar. By almost every word he uses, by al- 
most every inflection in his speech, by almost every 
thought he has, and by almost every shade of every 
thought, the man of to-day is the child of the past, a 
thousand times more than he is a child of the present. 
But the monkey is really the child of the present, and 
of it only, and always is so. Monkeyhood is exactly 
the same, to-clay, which it was a hundred, a thousand 
years ago, or when Aristotle was alive. 

Man is a child of the past, and ever more and more 
anciently descended. But concurrently with the men- 
tal wealth which is derived to him from the scholars 
and institutions and nations of the past, there are ob- 
ligations and fealties to the past, which get fastened 
upon him. 

By courts, and lawyers, and judges, and great rev- 
erence, do men endeavor to perpetuate among them- 
selves, and to get expounded and made intelligible, 



MIRACLES AND THE BELIEVING SPIRIT. 109 

the principles of law, which are the essences of the 
accumulated experiences of many men, in many ways, 
in many ages, and in many lands. 

And a man has no right to denounce or discard, or 
even to suspect, the miracles of the Scriptures, merely 
because they are not in keeping with his own notions, 
or, as he says, because of his being himself a child of 
to-day, and free of the past. For free of the past, 
whether for knowledge, or obligation, or fealty, is 
what a man can be, only just as he nears the irre- 
sponsible, disconnected, untaught, playsome individ- 
uality of the monkey in the woods. 



THE SCEIPTUEES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

THE Bible is a book which "he who runs may 
read." But if a man will read it, as a critic, he 
is bound to read it by all the light which he can get ; 
and to remember also, that even so he may be but in 
a dim twilight. " Bise, take up thy bed and walk," 
were words which turned to a miracle of healing for a 
poor man, so as that he could roll up his bit of car- 
pet and walk away. But for want of that informa- 
tion, with which always the background of Scriptural 
scenes ought to be filled up, in an old Dutch engrav- 
ing, the sufferer of thirty-eight years is pictured as 
walking away with a four-post bedstead, curtains, and 
bedding on his shoulders. And often on the miracles 
of the Scriptures there are comments made which, 
philosophically, are just as unwitting as that Dutch 
picture. For indeed miracles presuppose some kind 
of pneumatology. But this is a thing which is hardly 
ever thought of, because of the anti-supernaturalism 
of the times, which latterly men have been living 
through. " Pneumatology, — what is that, and what 
can that have to do with the Scriptures ? " These are 
questions, which have been asked in all seriousness, 
by persons, like whom there are thousands of others, 
both among those who attack and those who defend 
the Scriptures. 



THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. Ill 

Pneumatology is the science, or rather is the best 
understanding of men as to the spiritual universe, as 
to the ranks of spiritual beings, from the highest to 
the lowest, and especially of men as spiritual beings, 
and of the ways in which spiritually they may affect 
one another ; of their connections also with the spirit- 
ual world, and of the modes by which men may be 
affected, while yet in the flesh, by the influences and 
occupants of that world to which they belong spirit- 
ually, and also for eternity ; and of the liabilities, too, 
and possibilities incidental to human nature, because 
of man's mixed constitution, as to body and spirit 
This is pneumatology. And the pneumatology of the 
Scriptures, is that understanding of the spiritual uni- 
verse which the sacred writers had, when they wrote 
their respective books, psalms, and epistles. A matter 
this of infinite importance ! And it never could have 
been so commonly lost sight of, as it has been, but for 
the anti-supernaturalism of these latter times, and but 
that the best belief of the best believer to-day is not 
much better than the glimmering perceptions of some 
materialist philosopher, when first the eyes of his 
understanding begin to open spiritually. Deny the 
miracles of the Scriptures, without ever having known 
of the pneumatology involved in them ! A man might 
as well denounce the calculations and predictions of 
astronomy, because they are not of a piece with his 
pocket arithmetic. 

And the defence of the Scriptures, in ignorance of 

.the pneumatology pervading them, is, of course, but 

blundering work. And with a pneumatology of his 

own, however imperfectly understood, the ordinary 



112 THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Jew, of ancient times may have been a much better 
witness as to miracles than many a modern critic, in 
his place, would have been, who, however scientific he 
may be as to matter, has no science of spirit whatever. 
From the want of a Scriptural pneumatology, some 
things in the Bible are almost unintelligible, which 
would otherwise be very simple. Also the necessities 
of theologians in controversy have betrayed them 
into some false positions on Scriptural subjects, which 
they would never have occupied, if they had known 
the lay of the land on which they were contending, as 
through a pneumatology properly ascertained they 
would have done. 

It has been widely held as a truism, that there never 
have been any other miracles than what are recorded 
in the Bible, or than certainly what happened in Bibli- 
cal ages, or than what were seals of the Almighty set 
upon doctrines. This, however, is not Scriptural, and 
though it is intended as a defence of the Scriptures, it 
is ruinous to the philosophy of miracles. 

That the gods of the heathen were stocks and stones, 
or, at best, fine statues, is become even a truism. And 
yet, notwithstanding what two or three passages in the 
Old Testament may seem to say differently, it is as 
certain, apparently, as the reality of the first com- 
mandment, that besides Jehovah there were other 
gods of some kind to be had. 

And similarly, at present, the prophets denounced 
in the Old Testament are commonly supposed, all of 
them, to have been persons who pretended to proph- 
esy, while they knew themselves that they were only 
impostors. Whereas commonly, the false prophet was 



THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 113 

a man of prophetic nature, who was false to the Lord, 
and who allowed himself to be used as a mouthpiece 
or other agency, by some false god, some demon or hu- 
man spirit, who had got lodged, it may have been, in 
a temple, and by some such means, probably, as are 
used now for enticing martins to build in a garden. 

And because magic might seem to render miracles 
less miraculous, it has been fancied, that there may 
have been anciently, a curious modification of lan- 
guage taken for granted, occasionally, by which, when 
a thing was said to have been done, it was understood 
as having simply been pretended to have been done. 
And thus in Exodus, in rivalry with Moses, when 
"the magicians did so with their enchantments," it 
has been held that the proper understanding is, that 
merely the magicians seemed or pretended to do so. 

It has been supposed absolutely, that before Christ, 
there was no belief in another life among the Jews. 
And on this account, the revelation of a future life by 
Jesus Christ is thought to have been the more pecu- 
liar and wonderful. What, then, does all the legisla- 
tion 'by Moses mean, as to " familiar spirits," if such 
a thing as a familiar spirit had never been conceived 
of? And if it should be said that one might have 
believed in a spirit, without necessarily having con- 
ceived that that spirit was a man with prolonged ex- 
istence, then let the account of the woman of Endor 
be considered, — a woman that had a familiar spirit. 
Through her, says the narrative, she having seen " gods 
ascending from the earth," Saul talked with Samuel, 
much to his distress. The ordinary comment on this 
interview says that it was all imposture. But the 



114 THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Bible itself does not say so. But even supposing that 
one might contradict the history, in that flat manner, 
there still would remain all for which it is here cited, 
that among the Hebrews, at that early time, there was 
such a belief, in a disembodied existence of the human 
soul, as that Saul the king thought that the prophet 
Samuel, though dead and buried, might yet have a 
word for him in his sore extremity. No belief, 
among the ancient Jews, in another life, even though 
it were only before Malachi, the last of the proph- 
ets ! It would seem as though it might have been 
common even as " a familiar spirit." Certainly Jesus 
fully presumed on such a belief amongst them, when 
he said, " As touching the resurrection of the dead, 
have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by 
God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God 
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? God is not the God 
of the dead, but of the living." And surely this is a 
plain statement of doctrine. But it may be asked, 
what, then, was meant by St. Paul when he wrote that 
our Saviour Jesus Christ " hath abolished death, and 
hath brought life and immortality to light, through 
the gospel " ? Perhaps this may mean something far 
in advance, doctrinally, of what is commonly thought. 
As a matter of fact and history, it is certain that, at 
the appearing of our Saviour, the Jews did all believe 
in a life to come, with the exception of the small sect 
of Sadducees. But by those words of his, what, then, 
did St. Paul mean, over and above the general belief 
of the time ? He says that life and immortality were 
brought to light ; he does not say that they were 
brought out of utter darkness; but he adds, that it 



THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 115 

was by the gospel. By the visible resurrection of 
Christ, it was evident that there was a way by which 
men might live again. But besides that, though 
simultaneously with that knowledge, by the spirit of 
Christ, the connections between this world and the next 
were made manifest, and especially as regards faith 
and righteousness. Because of the spirit which they 
had got from him, all the early Christians felt them- 
selves as though raised from the dead in Christ. In 
Greece and Borne, a life after death was as distinctly 
believed in by the Bagans as it is to-day at Borne or 
Athens. But why, then, was not ancient literature 
more tinged by some coloring reflected from the world 
believed in ? Brecisely because the Bagans were 
without Christ. Life and immortality were believed 
to exist, but they were not brought to light as they 
are by the gospel ; were not felt as familiarly as Chris- 
tians feel them ; were not believed in, because of the 
indwelling Spirit, w T hich teaches, but were credited 
mainly because of ghost-stories, which were true 
enough, perhaps, in themselves, but which could affect 
only the externality of a man's nature, and not his 
inmost heart, out of which are the issues of life for 
this world and the world which is to come, — thought, 
speech, and holiness, literature and righteous action. 

In the Hebrew Scriptures there is a word which is 
commonly translated " grave," but sometimes when 
that could not possibly be the rendering, it is trans- 
lated "hell." But it means neither; and it means 
simply and exactly the place of souls. The word is 
" sheol." " The place of ghosts " is the meaning of 
the word, according to the Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon 



116 THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

of Dr. G. B. Winer, published in Leipsic. But how, 
then, does it happen that a mistranslation of the word 
into " grave," or " hell," should run throughout the Old 
Testament ? It has been for the same reason, for which 
that mistranslation has been recently perpetuated in a 
late Cyclopaedia, published in England. It was done 
originally, because the early English translators of the 
Bible could not think that any word therein could possi- 
bly lend any countenance to the Catholic doctrine of 
purgatory, or ought to. The place of souls might have 
been understood as purgatory possibly, and so it was 
translated either into hell outright, or else into the grave. 
And the consequence of this is to the English reader, 
that the ancient Hebrews, from their Scriptures, would 
seem to have been a people who almost never had a 
thought of another life, except now and then of hell, 
topographically. The word " hades " is mistranslated 
in the New Testament in much the same way. This 
all, at present, would be a great disgrace to the quarter 
where any authority or responsibility on the matter 
may belong, only that every Protestant living, perhaps, 
by his own mental condition, is more or less accessory 
to it. The Eabbi Ben Levi assured Dr. Priestley in a 
printed letter, that through Moses there was known to 
the Jews the certainty of a life hereafter. And no 
doubt this was much to the philosophic doctor's 
amazement and amusement, both. For on this subject, 
about every good Protestant, the words are true which 
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in regard to a kindred 
subject of ignorance. " But even unto this day, when 
Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart." 

The demoniacs are another illustration of the anti- 



THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 117 

supernatural understanding, with which the Scriptures 
are read by many implicit believers of the New Testa- 
ment, both scholars and pietists. "The demoniacs 
were merely epileptic patients," say certain ponderous 
theologians. And in this opinion certain other theolo- 
gians acquiesce, belonging to two or three different 
schools, and they say, " We do not see what else they 
could have been." And so the demoniacs of the New 
Testament are to be accounted epileptics, mainly be- 
cause modern theology cannot conceive of a demoniac. 
And why cannot modern theology conceive of a de- 
moniac ? Because it can hardly even conceive of a 
prophet ; because of the nature of prophecy it has 
scarcely a word to say ; and because, though intensely 
spiritual with some professors, it is yet almost as desti- 
tute of pneumatology as materialism itself. And yet 
in the Gospels, if there be any one thing which would 
seem to be plainer than another, because of the many 
times when it is mentioned, and the various ways in 
which it is presented, and the solemn manner also in 
which it is complicated with the highest claims of Je- 
sus as the Christ, — that one thing would seem to be the 
reality of spiritual possession, the certainty that there 
have been demoniacs. Possession by intruding un- 
clean spirits, is a liability to which human beings are 
subject by nature. It is a human trouble, as rare, per- 
haps, as the plague or the black death, but historically 
just as certain. Nor has it been an abnormal thing, prob- 
ably. But whenever it has happened, no doubt, it has 
been as the result of laws as definite as those which used 
to conduce to leprosy, or as those which are now con- 
cerned with cholera. But now if really devils, demons, 



118 THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

unclean spirits, or intruding spirits of any degree of 
unworthiness, were ever cast out of men by Jesus 
Christ or his apostles, then is this world a very differ- 
ent place from the world which Buckle knew all about. 

When the Eeformers broke away from the Catholic 
Church, they did leave, probably, much bad practice 
behind them, but they abandoned also some good the- 
ology, as well perhaps as much that was bad, and also 
a great deal of useful pneumatology, besides probably 
information, which was of an esoteric, oral character, 
though not the less important on that account. And 
besides this, they wrenched themselves from Catholi- 
cism so violently as to twist themselves, and distort 
their judgments. But indeed that wrench away could 
not well have been different from what it was, when 
an argument, whether good or poor, was foredoomed 
to conclude with a death at the stake. However, Prot- 
estants complain, and not unfairly, of the vulgate ver- 
sion of the Bible, as being Eoman Catholic. But 
certainly the mistranslation of the word " sheol " into 
"hell" or "grave" makes the authorized version of 
England be essentially Protestant. 

In the Bible, managed as it has been by prejudiced 
translators and sectarian commentators, the miracles 
narrated are more miraculous, that is, they are prima- 
rily less credible, than they ought to be ; because the 
general narrative and doctrine are not in as good keep- 
ing with them as they ought to be, in some respects. 
The prophet Samuel, emerging from a state of corrup- 
tion in a hole in the ground, would be one thing ; but 
a very different thing indeed, as to conceivableness and 
credibility, would be the prophet Samuel emerging on 



THE SCRIPTURES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 119 

mortal vision, like "gods ascending from the earth," for 
people who believed that there was a " shed," a region 
of departed spirits. When the patriarch Jacob was at 
the end of his life, he said, " I am to be gathered unto 
my people : bury me with my fathers, in the cave that 
is in the field of Ephron the Hittite." It was the 
death of a man who had no knowledge of a hereafter, 
many theologians have said. But now how differently 
these words sound, if it be supposed, on perhaps a good 
translation of his words, that in his grief for his son 
Joseph, " He refused to be comforted, and he said, 'For 
I will go down to the assembled spirits, unto my son 
mourning.' " 

Miracles for people, whose fathers and forefathers 
were living souls, angel-visits to people who believed 
in a disembodied life, would seem to have been more 
probable in themselves, and more credible, than as 
though they had happened among persons w T ho were 
without any knowledge of another world, and who were 
also without any of the ways of feeling which are akin 
to that knowledge. The Catholic Church may perhaps 
formerly have made too much of the Supernatural ; 
but through recoil and accidentally, Protestantism 
from its very beginning would seem to have had some- 
thing of an undue tendency towards anti-supernatural- 
ism. The effect of this inherited prejudice, a student 
has got to allow for, if he would find his right place 
on the field of thought. 



MIEACLES AND SCIENCE. 



MULTITUDES who read the Scriptures have 
quick eyes for the texts which seem to concern 
the doctrine of the Trinity, or the nature of baptism, 
or the manner of church-government. But they are 
very few indeed who have an eye for the supernatu- 
ral. Long ago, even Eichard Baxter, towards even the 
end of his life, ingenuously confessed how much he 
had been astonished, on counting up, at the number of 
occasions on which angels are mentioned in the Bible. 
As to there being a science of spirit involved in the 
Scriptures, how very few people ever think of such a 
thing ! And of those who attack the credibility of the 
Scriptures, as compromising the dignity of Jehovah 
by making him appear to men and talk with them, 
and give them visions, how very few remember that 
already and a very long time ago it had been said, " No 
man hath seen God at any time " ! And of these in- 
considerate critics, how much fewer still are they who 
have tried what Maimonides — good old Eabbi — could 
do for them, even though indisposed to follow him 
entirely ! Thus writes Maimonides in his book 
" Gad " : " Know also that all the prophets who men- 
tion prophecy as coming to them ascribe it either to an 
angel or to the blessed God, although it was by means 
of an angel, without doubt. On this point, our rabbies 



MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 121 

of blessed memory long ago delivered their opinion in 
explaining, ' And the Lord said to her ' thus, — by 
means of an angel. And know further, that whenever 
it is written that an angel spake with one, or that the 
word of the Lord came to him, this has not taken 
place in any other way than in a dream, or in a pro- 
phetic vision. There is an ancient agada respecting 
communications made to the prophets, as they are re- 
counted in the prophetic books, w^hich states that they 
were made in four ways. First, the prophet makes 
known that the communication was made by an angel 
in a dream or vision. Secondly, he merely mentions 
the communication of the angel to him, without ex- 
plaining that it was made in a dream or vision, because 
of the well-established principle that prophecy is con- 
fined to one or other of these two methods, ' I will 
make myself known to him in a- vision, I will speak 
unto him in a dream.' Thirdly, the angel is not men- 
tioned at all; but the communication is ascribed to 
God, the Blessed One, who speaks it to him, but who 
makes known that it comes to him in a vision or v 
dream. Fourthly, the prophet simply declares that 
God spoke to him, or said to him, do this, or say this, 
without explaining, either by mentioning an angel, or 
by mentioning a dream, on account of the well-estab- 
lished, fundamental principle, that prophecy or pro- 
phetic revelation comes only in dream or in vision, 
and through the agency of an angel/' And in expla- 
nation of another point, Maimonides adds, " Further- 
more it ought to be known that the expression ' And 
the Lord said to such an one ' is used when, strictly 
speaking, he has no prophetic vision, but the commu- 
6 



122 MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 

nication was made to him by means of a prophet." It 
will be remembered, of course, that by vision is meant 
what is experienced in a preternatural, trance-like 
state. Thus, at Joppa, the Apostle Peter " fell into a 
trance, and saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel 
descending unto him." But at Jerusalem, giving an 
account of this experience, he said, " I was in the city 
of Joppa, praying ; and, in a trance, I saw a vision, a 
certain vessel descend." This is the meaning of the 
word " vision," as it is used by Maimonides ; it is a 
vision during a trance. 

Does all this seem strange ? Yet it is all, or very 
nearly all in the Old Testament itself, and not very 
hard to find ; only that we are " slow of heart to be- 
lieve all that the prophets have spoken," and need for 
our enlightenment almost a miracle, like that with 
which Christ favored the two disciples, on their walk 
from Jerusalem to Emmaus, when he expounded the 
Scriptures, beginning at Moses and all the prophets. 
Christian divines of all ages, and some of the greatest, 
have agreed with the statement just quoted from 
Maimonides. But indeed, a thousand years before the 
Eabbi, one of the earliest of the Christian fathers, 
Justin Martyr, had written, "He, whom we call the 
Creator of all things, has never been seen by any- 
body; nor has he ever of himself spoken to any 
man." Philip a Limborch, explaining in what sense 
Moses saw God face to face, on a comparison of 
texts, says, " Hence it results that the whole revela- 
tion made to Moses was by the instrumentality of an 
angel, who represented God, and who was therefore 
exactly like God himself speaking." It was to that 



MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 123 

abbreviated way of describing revelation that Jesus 
perhaps referred when, in argument with the readers 
of the Old Testament, he said, u If he called them 
gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the 
Scripture cannot be broken." Soon after the resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ, the Jews were addressed by 
Stephen as having "received the law by the dispo- 
sition of angels." This view of the Jewish revela- 
tion is evidently taken for granted in the Epistle to 
the Galatians. And in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
Judaism is described as " the word spoken by angels." 
And writing to Timothy, Paul said that the appearing 
of our Lord Jesus Christ was what " in his times he 
shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, 
the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; who only hath 
immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can 
approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor can see : 
to whom be honor and power everlasting " This is 
not quite the state of things spiritually, which some 
people would seem to suppose. And there must be 
agencies active in this universe, and after a manner 
which would surprise not materialists only, but some 
very good Christians also. 

After what has preceded, it will strike the reader 
more ; but otherwise how few people are ever prop- 
erly impressed by the commencement of the Book 
of Eevelation ! " The Eevelation of Jesus Christ, 
which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants 
things which must shortly come to pass ; and he sent 
and signified it by his angel unto his servant John : 
who bare record of the word of God, and of the testi- 
mony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw." 



124 MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 

The Eevelation was given by God to Jesus Christ; 
and by Jesus Christ it was communicated to an angel; 
and by the angel it was delivered to John : and by 
John it was published in the Church, — a revelation 
from the Father of Lights, that came down from 
above, and, as it were, through one world and an- 
other, till it reached this earth, to show unto his ser- 
vants things which must shortly come to pass. 

Many a Christian divine would be astonished at the 
position with which he would have to take up, if he 
were asked by a Jew to tell him, out of the Book of 
Acts precisely and exactly, how it was that Christian 
Jews felt themselves authorized to baptize and accept 
Gentiles as Christians. And many a good Christian, 
who thinks that he knows all about Providence, would 
feel himself, as it were, called away into a strange re- 
gion, if he were asked to explain why God commu- 
nicated with the Jews through angels, while all the 
while not a sparrow fell to the ground without his 
knowledge, nor was there a man even but on his head 
the hairs were all numbered. 

If the miracles of the Bible seem incredible to any 
one, let him bethink himself that he perhaps has 
never read the Scriptures ; for passing the eye over 
the words is certainly not the same as catching the 
sense. Many a man has defended the reality of mira- 
cles, out of a Bible which was blinded against him by 
his own unconscious anti-supernaturalism. And many 
a disbeliever, if he knew the spiritual philosophy in- 
volved in the Scriptures, would accept both miracles 
and doctrine alike, and at once. 

When the words are read in church, " The word of 



MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 125 

the Lord came," how few people have ever wondered 
as to how it came, or as to how Isaiah or Hosea re- 
ceived it ! And worse still than this, there are persons 
who deride the prophets, who yet have never thought, 
nor inquired, nor even suspected, whether possibly a 
prophet might not have been an honest man, with 
some constitutional peculiarity, fitting him for proph- 
ecy. " And he said, Hear now my words : if there 
be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make my- 
self known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto 
him in a dream." There are many scientific men who 
would not doubt, for a moment, but that they know 
proportionately as much about Christianity as they do 
about science. And yet, out of all their multitude, 
for one man who could define the nature of prophecy, 
there must be a thousand utterly ignorant about it, 
though they know well about chemical affinities as 
operative on the floor of the ocean, and have curious 
information as to bivalves, and as to the manner in 
which flat fish are acted upon by light reflected from 
below. 

Miracles incredible as narrated in the Scriptures, — 
it is no wonder that they should have become so, to 
some persons ; because so many connections of prob- 
ability and credibility have been stripped away from 
them, or have been at least forgotten. And now for 
this state of things what is the remedy ? It will 
come not with argument at all, perhaps ; nor will it 
probably result much from any forthcoming informa- 
tion; but it will come with time and the grace of 
God; and for some persons it may be that it will 
come in a way not altogether alien to that by which 



126 MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 

the earliest Christians, on the reappearance of their 
crucified Lord, were mentally reinstated after their 
bewilderment. "Then opened he their understand- 
ing, that they might understand the Scriptures." 

And indeed not the Bible only, but even the globe 
itself, is to a man what simply himself he is ready to 
have it be. To one man this earth is a heap of dirt 
in which to worm his way ; and to the red Indian, 
uncorrupted, it was a broad hunting-field, on which 
the Great Spirit showed him favors. To one man it 
is chiefly of interest as having been once the play- 
thing of natural forces, geologically, the ways of 
whose gambolling he delights to trace and classify. 
While in the eyes of another it is like a great egg, 
with vital powers operative in it and about it, which 
are instructive to watch. And for still another man, 
scientifically, it is like a book of common understand- 
ing between himself and the Creator. And for still 
another student of science the earth, with all its ful- 
ness of laws chemical, dynamic, and vital, is as to- 
wards God but " the hiding of his power." And an- 
other rarer person still, feels as though continually a 
voice were calling to him, " The place whereon thou 
standest is holy ground," because of the heavenly 
affinities with which the world is wrapped about for 
believing souls ; because of what prayer effects all 
round the earth ; and because of the manner in which 
the forces of nature concur with spirit for spiritual 
ends. And to spirits of different orders, it is con- 
ceivable that our earth varies still more than it does 
to the feelings respectively of its own inhabitants. 
And even of spirits, who have departed from the life 



MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 127 

of this earth, there is an old philosophy, according to 
which, for various reasons, one spirit might for a while 
keep a clear view of the earth and its inhabitants, 
while another might have lost all sight of it, with his 
last mortal breath. And it is conceivable, too, that 
the most familiar spot in this world is what we should 
not know, if we could look at it through the eyes of 
a seraph. 

And what happened for his servant at the instance 
of the prophet Elisha, " Lord, I pray thee, open his 
eyes that he may see," — were this done for any man 
to-day, what a change, in a moment, there would be 
in everything about him ! The solid earth, perhaps, 
would have become but as a vapor, just dense enough 
to hold the spirit of nature and manifest its play and 
glow ; while distances above, around, and below would 
be felt to be at once infinitely great and curiously 
small, changing, so to say, with the spectator's chang- 
ing mind. Also, for that man, the clouds and atmos- 
phere would have disappeared, while the invisible 
ether perhaps would have become visible, and alive 
with currents of fluid more subtile than electricity, 
and with angels passing in glory like shooting stars, 
and with resemblances of auroras and seas of gold, 
and also with threads of sympathy between souls on 
earth and souls departed, and which may be none the 
less real or useful, for not being known of, on either 
side. Also with some appearance, not far from him, 
some silvery, golden sheen, which he might notice, 
he might have an experience like that of St. John 
the Divine, and see the smoke of incense, with pray- 
ers of saints, ascending up before God, from a golden 



128 MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 

censer in an angel's hand. And after this in a mo- 
ment, with merely remembering his dead father, he 
might find himself, face to face with him. And then, 
as this opening of his eyes was closing, and while his 
sight was becoming again that simply of " the natural 
man," he might retain perhaps, out of all that he had 
seen, only some few incongruous reminiscences, and a 
sense that the great glory itself of the vision was 
what it is not possible for a man to utter. 

World beyond world ! World within world ! Not 
only are the miracles of the Scriptures credible, but 
because of what information now faith can extract 
from science, more and more natural does the super- 
natural seem to become, and more and more super- 
natural, because of its susceptibilities, does the king- 
dom of nature seem to grow. 

A glimpse about us with those eyes, which will open 
for us first probably only after death, — a glimpse with 
those eyes, with which we are to see to all eternity, — 
just a glimpse of the spiritual world, which indeed 
already we are living in, though we are cased against 
it by the flesh, — with just one glimpse we should 
feel, that in such a world as there is about us, and 
that with such worlds within worlds, as there are 
which probably concern us, that the promises of 
Christ may yet perhaps be to be fulfilled, and that 
greater works than have yet been done, Christians 
may yet do by invoking, in faith, Him of that name, 
which is above every name, and unto whom morals, 
politics, and science, rule, authority, and power, and all 
things, are to be subdued. And with that one glimpse, 
too, what impossibilities as to belief would vanish ! 



MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 129 

For in that widened sphere, vitally connected with 
humanity, that the spirit of demons might be com- 
petent to add confusion to human affairs, by working 
miracles, in some way or other, on the road, and at the 
time contemplated in the book of Eevelation, — this 
all would seem to be not much more improbable than 
that wicked rulers should ever be backed by genius. 
And between the highest and the lowest sources of 
miracles, foretold in the New Testament, there would 
seem to be place for those spirits, about whom there is 
a forewarning by St. John, that they ought not to be 
believed as spirits simply, but that they should be 
tried as to their being of God, because that actually 
and already,, and to John's own knowledge, and as 
though by inspiration from spirits, there were many 
false prophets " gone out into the world." 

Miracles impossible because of science ! They are 
impossible to the belief of a man, simply because of 
the conceit which comes of learning, but in no other 
way. For really the powers of nature, as they are 
discovered by science, would seem to be the ready, 
pliant agencies of supernatural purposes. Why should 
not the demons of Plato's theology be as much at 
home on magnetic currents as men are in steamboats ? 
Why should not an angel be able to approach this 
earth, by subordinating electricity to his use, as well 
as Benjamin Franklin have been able to draw, and 
concentrate, and enslave it for human purposes ? Sci- 
ence ! what has science, in the court of common sense, 
to say against the miracles of healing, by a word or a 
touch, which are told of in the Scriptures ? It has 
nothing, absolutely nothing whatever to say, except 
6* i 



130 MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. 

that it has not heard of such things of late centuries, 
and that they do not appear ever to have been very 
common. But that is nothing for science to tell. To 
an angel of wisdom, or to the eyes of the best inhab- 
itant of the star Sirius, imported into this earth, as 
a judge, belladonna would not seem to be any more 
likely, as a curative agent, than a man's hand. And 
when it is remembered what a man's hand may be as 
a channel, — how it is connected with his brain, and 
through his brain with a wide universe of forces 
known and occult, and with God, the fountain-head 
of all power ; and when, by Christians, not as neces- 
sary to the argument but additionally, it is remem- 
bered that through the Spirit, God was in Christ, and 
Christ in his apostles and others, it does not then seem 
to be incredible, even in itself, that the human hand, 
stretched forth in faith, may have been as efficient for 
healing as dried herbs at their best, and quicker than 
they as to operation. In the Gospel of Luke it is 
written that " it came to pass, when he was in a cer- 
tain city, behold a man full of leprosy, who, seeing 
Jesus, fell on his face and besought him, saying, Lord, 
if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put 
forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will : be 
thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed 
from him." 



THE SPIEIT AND THE PROPHETS THEREOF. 

AND now let miracles be considered in connection 
with persons. There is a restricted use of the 
word " miracle," as what might concern only material 
substances. But it is not Scriptural. And there is a 
restricted use of the word "prophet," by which it 
means simply a foreteller. But neither is this Scrip- 
tural. In the Scriptures themselves, prophets are not 
all of one class. Also in the times of the Scriptures, 
a man was specially a prophet who filled officially and 
by public recognition the place of a prophet. Daniel 
was a prophet, but he was also an exile in Babylon ; 
and it may be for this reason that, in a Hebrew Bible, 
the book of Daniel is not printed along with the books 
of the prophets, but elsewhere. Then again, however, 
Abraham is styled a prophet. But some little varia- 
tion in the use of words during two thousand years 
is of course to be expected. And so, in the account 
of Saul's first visit to Samuel, it is written " he that 
is now called a prophet was beforetime called a Seer." 
What, then, was a prophet ? He was a channel for 
spirit, — for the Spirit of God, or for the inspiration 
of an " evil spirit " ; he may have been, according to 
Jeremiah, one of " the prophets that prophesy lies," 
or one of "the prophets of the deceit of their own 
heart," or he may have been according to what is per- 



132 THE SPIRIT AND 

haps the better understanding of a text in Zechariah, 
the prophet of " an unclean spirit"; he may have 
"prophesied in the name of the Lord/' or he may 
have " prophesied by Baal." He was a man through 
whom incorporeal, intelligent power expressed itself, 
by thoughts . foreign to the man's mind, or by actions 
passing human ability, as to quality or intensity. In 
this definition, the word "through" is used in its 
broader signification, and as meaning sometimes " con- 
currently with," and thereby as embracing some 
miracles, which were begun and finished outside of 
the person of the prophet, but yet withinside of a 
sphere, wherein was available that peculiarity of his 
constitution whereby he was prophetic. Though also 
it would seem as though dome few of the miracles 
narrated in the Bible, and especially in the earlier 
ages, may perhaps have been independent of the per- 
son of a prophet, and connected with him simply as 
an associate assistance. 

But there are yet two or three other things to be 
noticed. Balaam is not called a prophet, notwith- 
standing that wonderful history, in which he was con- 
cerned : and notwithstanding that " the Spirit of God 
came upon him " ; and notwithstanding that he was 
Balaam, the son of Beor, " which heard the words of 
God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, 
which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a 
trance, but having his eyes open." This is an exact 
description of the prophetic state. Nor yet was Gid- 
eon called a prophet, notwithstanding his having been 
addressed by an angel, and been favored with mira- 
cles, and notwithstanding that " the Spirit of the Lord 



THE PROPHETS THEREOF. 133 

came upon Gideon." But this may have been because 
of his never having had any experience like the special 
characteristic of a prophet, because he never " saw the 
vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but hav- 
ing his eyes open." Also as used by St. Paul, proph- 
ecy is simply speaking from the Spirit, and might 
seem to be of no kinship with miracles. But then 
there are those famous words addressed to the Co- 
rinthians, in which miracles and prophecy are said to 
be of the same origin, and to be indeed one and the 
same thing, at their coming forth from spirit into 
nature. " There are diversities of operations, but it is 
the same God which worketh all in all," quickening, 
illuminating, and endowing men, according as they 
are susceptible and willing. "The manifestation of 
the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For 
to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to 
another the word of .knowledge by the same Spirit ; to 
another faith by the same Spirit ; to another the gifts 
of healing by the same Spirit ; to another the working 
of miracles ; to another prophecy ; to another discern- 
ing of spirits ; to another divers kinds of tongues ; to 
another the interpretation of tongues; but all these 
worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to 
every man severally as he will." 

Also, says St. Paul, "He that is joined unto the 
Lord is one spirit " ; and so, necessarily, he is become 
a man of infinite and innumerable possibilities for 
this world or the next, being united with the fountain- 
head of all goodness and truth and power, even though 
for the present it be only by a channel coming down 
from above, and along the far-away course of which 



134 THE SPIRIT AND 

angel calls to angel, up the heights of heaven. By 
the Spirit of God, all men are not affected exactly 
alike, because with it men are still men, and of their 
respective nationalities, generations, and individual- 
ities. Samson was a man of rude strength, and in a 
rude age, and with Philistines to think of. " And be- 
hold a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit 
of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him, 
as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in 
his hand." But Paul in Samson's place, probably, 
could never have done the same thing, or have been so 
strengthened perhaps, any more than the hand of 
Samson would have availed for Paul's epistles. And 
so differently indeed, by the same Spirit, was Paul af- 
fected from Samson, that he wTote, " When I am weak, 
then am I strong." 

And Gideon, — "The angel of the Lord appeared 
unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, 
thou mighty man of valor." And how was the Lord 
with him ? It was through the channel of the valiant 
man's valor. For "the Spirit of the Lord came upon 
Gideon," and it blew through his trumpet, and it 
clenched for him his right hand upon his sword ; and 
that sword was " the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." 
Azariah and Zechariah being prophets, the Spirit of 
God with them became messages, beginning with 
" Thus saith the Lord." Says David, " The Spirit of 
the Lord spake by me " ; and the historian adds, 
" Sweet psalmist of Israel." And his psalms are the 
psalms of the Spirit and of David. And now how 
was it with Simeon of Jerusalem, when "the Holy 
Ghost was upon him " ? It was according to his con- 



THE PROPHETS THEREOF. 135 

dition, which was that of a devout old man, hopeful 
and expectant, at a time of extremity, because of what 
his nation was historically. "And it was revealed 
unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see 
death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he 
came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the 
parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him 
after the custom of the law, then took he him up in 
his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest 
thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy 
word : for mine eyes have seen thy salvation," 

The protomartyr Stephen probably knew of the 
council, as to taking no thought beforehand for magis- 
trates, for what he should say. And how was it with 
him, "full of faith and power," when he was con- 
fronted by enemies ? " They were not able to resist 
the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake." And 
more than that, "all that sat in the council looking 
steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the 
face of an angel." Altogether different from that of 
any of the personages before mentioned was the ex- 
perience of the Spirit by St. John the Divine : and 
very widely different it certainly was from what Gid- 
eon or Samson knew of. Says John of himself, being 
in Patmos, long enough after the death of his Lord, 
to date by the Lord's Day, and with a mind in all 
probability anxious about the future of the church, 
" I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard be- 
hind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, I am 
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last : and what 
thou seest write in a book." 

Before one can estimate fairly the significance of a 



136 THE SPIRIT AND 

miracle, he must know how the worker of the mira- 
cles was estimated. Commonly every prophet is sup- 
posed to have been " a man of God " even through the 
name of prophet merely; and every word which he 
may have uttered, it is often supposed, must have 
been holy. And yet there is an account, under the 
reign of Jeroboam, of the misdeed and capital punish- 
ment of " the man of God, who was disobedient unto 
the word of the Lord." 

The history of King Saul is very instructive as to 
the faculty of prophecy in connection with character. 
After he had been anointed by the prophet Samuel, 
and just as had been predicted for him, " Behold, a 
.company of prophets met him; and the Spirit of 
God came upon him, and he prophesied among them." 
Awhile after that, because of an atrocious proposal of 
the Ammonites, " the Spirit of God came upon Saul, 
when he heard those tidings, and his anger was kin- 
dled greatly." After this, there are accounts of the 
untoward ways of Saul: and then it is to be read 
that " the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and 
an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." Soon 
after this " the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, 
and he prophesied in the midst of the house " ; and 
directly afterwards "Saul was afraid of David, be- 
cause the Lord was with him, and was departed from 
Saul." And then a little later, because of the Spirit 
of God, which mastered all his messengers, and made 
them prophesy, as they approached Samuel, instead of 
discharging their errand, himself, " he went thither to 
Naioth in Eamah : and the Spirit of God was upon 
him also, and he went on and prophesied until he 



THE PROPHETS THEREOF. 137 

came to Naioth in Bamah. And he stripped off his 
clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like 
manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that 
night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the 
prophets ? " According to this history, then, Saul 
prophesied at one time from the Spirit of God, and 
at another time from an evil spirit, and then again 
from the Spirit of God. With Saul, then, the faculty 
of prophecy was independent of its use ; just as po- 
etry may sing to the glory of God, or may be a ribald 
jester in the household of Satan. 

There is a curious history in the thirteenth chapter 
of the First Book of the Kings. A prophet had been 
on a wonderful errand to Bethel, and by the word of the 
Lord, had been ordered not to eat or drink there. But 
he was accosted by an old prophet, who " said unto 
him, I am a prophet also as thou art : and an angel 
spake unto me, by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring 
him back with thee unto thine house, that he may eat 
bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he 
went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, 
and drank water. And it came to pass, as they sat at 
the table, that the word of the Lord came unto the 
prophet that brought him back. And he cried unto 
the man of God that came from Juclah, saying, Thus 
saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the 
mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the command- 
ments which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but 
earnest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in 
the place of the which the Lord did say to thee, Eat no 
bread and drink no water ; thy carcass shall not come 
unto the sepulchre of thy fathers. ,, Here a man 



138 THE SPIRIT AND 

known as an old prophet, immediately after hearing of 
a series of striking miracles, lies fearfully in pretend- 
ing a message from an angel, by the word of the Lord. 
And yet quickly afterwards to that same old prophet 
" the word of the Lord came " Avith a prophecy against 
the prophet who had been deluded by him, and which 
was almost instantly fulfilled. 

Moses and Aaron and Miriam were brothers and 
sister, and had been witnesses together of great mira- 
cles in Egypt, at the Eed Sea, at Mount Sinai, and at 
Taberah. Yet Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses : 
and they said, " Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by 
Moses ? hath he not spoken also by us ? And the 
Lord heard it." And although she was a prophetess, 
and even perhaps all the more readily, because of that 
psychical channel or condition through which she was 
capable of being made prophetic, she found induced on 
her suddenly a miraculous leprosy. And of Moses him- 
self, there is to be read what is very striking. He had 
gone up with miraculous attendance, and at the call 
of the Lord, on to Mount Sinai, where he remained 
forty days. And the Lord "gave unto Moses, when he 
had made an end of communing with him upon Mount 
Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written 
with the finger of God. And when the people saw 
that Moses delayed to come down out of the Mount, 
the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, 
and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go 
before us ; for as for this Moses, the man that brought 
us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is 
become of him." Whereupon ensued bestial idolatry, 
of a piece with what they had known in Egypt* "And 



THE PROPHETS THEREOF. 139 

it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, 
that he saw the calf, and the dancing : and Moses' an- 
ger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, 
and brake them beneath the Mount." It was in holy 
indignation that this was done, no doubt, but still it 
was, as it is written, in anger. 

David was a prophet, but yet there was a terrible 
occasion, on which another prophet, Nathan, was sent 
to him to say, " Thou art the man." Peter is called at 
Eome the Prince of the apostles, but yet, it was he 
who denied three times over that ever he had known 
his Lord. As St. Jerome remarks, miracles were 
wrought by Judas the apostle, even when he had in 
him the mind of a traitor. And even of that high- 
priest Caiaphas, who was accessory to the crucifixion 
of Jesus, it is written that just before that event, be- 
ing in council, he pronounced an opinion. "And this 
spake he not of himself: but being high-priest that 
year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that na- 
tion." 

Not only do miracles not vouch for character ; but 
even the very agents of miracles could quarrel among 
themselves, and be doubtful about doctrine. In his 
epistle to the Galatians, Paul writes, " He that wrought 
effectually in Peter to the apostleship' of the circum- 
cision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gen- 
tiles." And then because of the time-serving of Peter, 
Paul says, " When Peter was come to Antioch, I with- 
stood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." 
On one occasion Barnabas and Saul, " being sent forth 
by the Holy Ghost," journeyed together. And Barna- 
bas saw great miracles wrought through Paul, at 



140 THE SPIRIT AND 

Paphos and at Lystra ; but for all that, after a little 
while, " the contention was so sharp between them 
that they departed asunder one from the other.'' That 
miracles were wrought through Paul, did not make 
Barnabas think that Paul was a better judge than 
himself in common things. Nor apparently would he 
have yielded to Paul, if even he had known already 
what happened soon afterwards. " And God wrought 
special miracles by the hands of Paul : so that from 
his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or 
aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the 
evil spirits went out of them." 

And indeed it is one thing for a man to serve as a 
channel for the Holy Ghost ; and it is a very different 
thing indeed, for that man himself to appropriate that 
Spirit for his own enlightenment and sanctification. 
St. Paul himself had a very vivid sense of this. And 
on this very point, writing to the Corinthians fourteen 
years after his marvellous experience, he says, " I knew 
such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, 
I cannot tell : God knoweth) how that he was caught 
up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which 
it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one 
will I glory : yet of myself I will not glory, but in 
mine infirmities." He could glory in the miracle but 
only as though he himself had had nothing whatever 
to do with it. A wonderful man ! The apostle, too, of 
everything in the Church which is not Jewish ! The 
great apostle of the Gentiles ! But inwardly also he 
was great. And the greater the insight has been, 
which the greatest men have attained to, the more 
wonderfully plain has it become to them, that Paul 



THE PROPHETS THEREOF. 141 

was a channel for the Holy Spirit, not merely with his 
lips and the surface of his nature, but through that 
great heart of his, which for that purpose had ripened, 
as the tenantless earth did in the broad light of the 
sun, by inward heat and convulsions from mysterious 
powers, and by processes which were at once purifying 
and enriching, and also terrible. 

Paul might have been able to withstand harmlessly 
the bite of a deadly viper, because of the power which 
was in him ; he might have been once and again taken 
for a god by both Greeks and barbarians ; he might at 
one time, by merely sending his handkerchief have 
cured disease, or have chased away evil spirits ; or he 
might have been able to say to the Corinthians, " I 
thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye 
all." But it was because of what was more than all 
that, because of his wonderful self-knowledge, because 
of his philosophy, because of the quickening which he 
had had from the Holy Spirit, that he could also say 
to the Corinthians, " I keep under my body, and bring 
it into subjection : lest that by any means, when I 
have preached to others, I myself should be a cast- 
away." 

What an autobiography Paul might have written ! 
It would seem as though it might be like a key to end- 
less mysteries, if only we could know the process of 
his feeling during his time of isolation in Arabia. 
"When it pleased God, who separated me from my 
mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal 
his Son in me, that I might preach him among the 
heathen ; immediately I conferred not with flesh and 
blood ; neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which 



142 THE SPIRIT AND 

were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia." Af- 
ter that wondrous conversion of his, and he being the 
man he was, what was it which went on with him and 
in him, during that seclusion in Arabia, before he re- 
turned again to Damascus, whence, after three years, 
he went up to Jerusalem to see Peter ? Perhaps 
really he never could have reduced it into words, any 
more than he was able to tell what it was that he saw 
when he was " caught up to the third heaven." For, 
indeed, very often, by persons of marked experience, 
it has been a confession, that withinside the surface, 
which had been witnessed by the public, and within- 
side still of what they themselves could tell of, there 
was a dim sense of what they had been drawn through, 
which it was not possible for them to explain, — as 
being a something concerned with powers outside of 
the material world, and for which, as to the inter- 
course, the words of mortals are nothing. 

And now, from this chapter what is the inference ? 
For fairly stating it, some accompanying explanations 
would be necessary ; but, in a general way, it may be 
said to be this : The Spirit of God would keep itself 
for recognition, as distinct as is possible, and as free 
as possible from confusion with the human agencies, 
through which it signifies itself. And, indeed, if it 
were manifested only through saints, it would be 
thought to be an attribute of human goodness ; 
whereas, really, it is a manifestation, more or less 
direct, and more or less imperfect, because of human 
infirmities, — it is a manifestation of the Spirit of the 
universe, and of the God, who is that Spirit. And 
thus it is, — and no thanks to Jonah or any man of 



THE PROPHETS THEREOF. 143 

his kind, — thus it is, that the Spirit of God, for its 
purposes, can make use of an unwilling man, and an 
unmerciful man, like the prophet Jonah. 

But, indeed, every gift or grace of any magnitude, 
is almost instinctively held by the heart, like treasure 
in an earthen vessel. And with the least glimmer of 
insight, a man of any greatness sees at once, that the 
best part of himself is not himself at all, but what is 
confided to him, like "treasure in earthen vessels." 
Those words of St. Paul, as to his experience, have 
been repeated age after age, by the greatest men, 
sometimes in triumph, and sometimes in tears; by 
scholars as to their faculty, by poets as to their genius, 
and by every saint as to his holiness. Those words 
of Paul are what John w T ould have joined in, and 
what Peter would have affirmed ; they are what David 
would have gloried in, for singing like a psalm ; and 
also of all - holy apostles and prophets " they are the 
solemn testimony to the world, and before Heaven, 
— " But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that 
the excellency of the power may be of God, and not 
of us." 



ANTI-SUPEBNATUBAL MISUNDEESTAKD- 
EKTGS. 

NOR is it the Bible only which, is wronged by the 
anti-supernaturalism of the reader, but other 
ancient writings also suffer from the same cause. And 
from the same cause also there is sometimes a great 
misapprehension of certain eras of history. There are 
some words, frequently quoted from a work by Cicero, 
which simply are a sentiment which he puts into the 
mouth of a man in an imaginary conversation. But it 
is quoted as though it were his own deliberate opinion ; 
and it touches heathenism only on one point, which 
by its nature was always accounted as being variable ; 
and yet it is often adduced to show that Cicero was 
estranged from heathenism with his whole mind, and 
that also every educated person was ready to abandon 
heathenism, before the birth of Christ. But a Boman 
might say all that Cicero said on the nature of the 
gods, and yet continue to be especially heathenish, and 
might have a soul liable, any day, to flash up and fill 
out all the old creed with credence. And actually, 
on the death of his daughter, Cicero built a temple, 
which he dedicated to her ghost. 

It is quite true, that the worship of Jupiter Capito- 
linus declined very largely during the first century of 
the present era. Was it, however, because Borne had 
become less earnestly idolatrous ? No ; not in the 



ANTI-SUPERNATURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 145 

least. It was because Eome had become more idola- 
trous than when it was founded, and because the 
idolatries of all nations had been brought and assem- 
bled there. And this is certain by legislation on the 
subject; for age after age, the Senate issued injunc- 
tions and complaints as to the manner in which the 
old gods of the country were being neglected, for the 
more fashionable deities and services of foreign origin. 
It is not true, that Christianity had its way in the 
world largely facilitated by the decline of heathenism. 
It is an anti-Christian position which is never chal- 
lenged, but yet it is not tenable. Heathenism did not 
die of public indifference, nor of indifference at all. 
It never was more thoroughly believed than it was by 
its last professors. And as to favors granted him by 
his gods, there never was a man more thoroughly per- 
suaded about anything than the Emperor Julian was 
about that. But that he could have been so persuaded 
is what is almost impossible for a scholar to think, be- 
cause of that general anti-supernaturalism, which every- 
body suffers from, like an influenza. Even a writer 
like the German Tholuck can instance Pausanias as 
being sceptical about his religion. But now that 
writer was of a certain school in Pagan theology ; but 
he was not, therefore, the less thoroughly hearty in his 
Paganism, if that may be called so, which got the 
name somewhat later than his time. To suppose that 
he doubted about Hellenism, for any reason contained 
in his book, is much about the same thing as though, 
by way of an incongruous comparison, yet apt enough 
for the point, one should doubt the Christianity of 
Izaak Walton, because of his friendship with Bishop Ken. 
7 j 



146 ANTI-SUPERNATURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 

Pausanias, who writes of the various occasions on 
which he was warned by visions or dreams sent from 
the gods, and of his sacred obedience accordingly ; who 
tried, too, some of the marvels connected with Pagan- 
ism, and who testifies about them as being real ; and 
who, besides, had a most affectionate and tender inter- 
est in all the antiquities of Paganism in Greece, — 
Pausanias, a doubter, and, in the second century of the 
Christian era, an example of failing faith in his re- 
ligion ! It might as well be said that the Maccabees 
were doubtful about Moses, or that Alban Butler, in 
the " Lives of the Saints," was not quite sure about 
the Church. And there have been persons who have 
so written about Plato, as though it might have seemed 
evident that, to their apprehension, there was no de- 
monology of any kind involved in his writings. How 
has it happened that of what Plato wrote there are 
things which some of his most fervent disciples would 
seem never to have noticed ? This case may be passed 
over to Pausanias. And how has it been that Pausa- 
nias could ever have been accounted an instance of 
declining faith in Hellenism ? For the whole tone of 
his book is that of a fervent, unquestioning believer. 
And there are perhaps ten narratives of what he be- 
lieved were his own experiences of it, preternaturally. 
How, then, is it that he should ever have been ac- 
counted a doubter, or even a man with misgivings as 
to his Pagan religion ? It could only have been from 
prejudice, and from thinking him, perhaps, a man too 
wise to mean exactly w T hat he wrote. Or rather, the 
writer who first published that impression about him 
must have been a man whose eye, by anti-supernatural 



ANTI-SUPERNATURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 147 

habit in reading, slurred over what really Pausanias 
had to say about himself. 

Paganism growing effete as a pow r er, and thereby 
yielding the more readily to the preaching of Chris- 
tianity ! It is what never happened. That anti-Chris- 
tian position has been acquiesced in by some Christian 
divines, from a mistaken notion as to the law of pro- 
gress, by which it has been fancied that, as one religion 
was dying out, it was of the mercy of God that there 
should be, under Providence, another and better re- 
ligion to succeed it. The notion of those divines was 
true ; but it was not the whole truth, even on their 
plane of thought. Heathenism as a social power, 
yielding easily to the soft coming of Christianity, — is 
that, or anything like it, corroborated by the history of 
the Colosseum ? No : and there is not a brick there, 
nor a stone, nor scarcely a grain of dust, but, like blood 
crying from the ground, protests in every intelligent 
ear against Gibbon, the historian, for what he has said. 
And how is it about the other monuments of ancient 
Eome, as connected with that idolatry which w T as the 
soul of it ? They nearly all of them witness, in one 
way or another, to the strength of that heathenism 
which had to yield to the " foolishness of preaching." 
The circus of Maxentius was dedicated, and the temple 
of Romulus, the son of Maxentius, was built only in 
the very last year of heathenism, the very year before 
Constantine entered Eome as a Christian emperor. 
And the grandest monument surviving of ancient 
Eome, the Pantheon, was but a fresh building at the 
birth of Christ, having been finished and inscribed 
less than thirty years before. Of nearly all the tern- 



148 ANTI-SUPERNATURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 

pies which /remain in Eome, the very dates attest the 
strength of idolatry there, ages after Paul had looked 
on, as a prisoner, — the temple of Kemus, that of 
Ceres and Proserpine, that of Vesta, that of Antoninus 
Pius, that of Venus and Eome, built by Hadrian, and 
that of Minerva Medica, of the age of Diocletian. 
And all rotind the Forum, by the dates at which they 
were built, all the temples attest that heathenism was 
never stronger socially than whilst Christianity was 
preaching against it, — the temple of Concord and that 
of Vespasian, — the temple of Saturn, between the 
Forum and the Capitol, and the temple of Antoninus 
and Faustina, with its startling inscription, alongside 
of the Via Sacra. And if more testimony were needed, 
it might be reasoned out from the arch of Constantine, 
erected in the fourth century of our era, and from that 
arch of Titus, in the first century, which bears in- 
wrought into it, what is almost a cry from the dead, in 
the marble form of Simon the son of Gorias, as he was 
dragged triumphantly into Eome, after the capture of 
Jerusalem, along with the spoils of the temple, sculp- 
tured also on the arch in colored marbles, — the silver 
trumpets, and the table for the shew-bread, and also 
the seven-branched candlestick. The history of Chris- 
tianity in struggle with Paganism has not been written 
yet ; nor can it be written, but under another philos- 
ophy of religion than what has prevailed since the 
archives of the past have begun to be generally acces- 
sible. And the persons through whom, by one trial 
after another, it shall ultimately have been accom- 
plished, will have testified to a very different struggle 
from what Gibbon ever thought that he was writing 



ANTI-SUPERNATURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 149 

about, and will have attested the words of St. Paul, 
as having been true : " For we wrestle not against 
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against pow- 
ers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, 
against spiritual wickedness in high places." 

How wonderful is that text in Isaiah, new once, but 
now again almost as fresh for meaning as it ever was : 
" The vision of all is become unto you as the words of 
a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is 
learned, saying, Eead this, I pray thee ; and he saith, 
I cannot ; for it is sealed : and the book is delivered to 
him that is not learned, saying, Eead this, I pray thee : 
and he saith, I am not learned." A general blindness 
this, and perhaps without the fault specially of any 
individuals. And what came from Isaiah in proph- 
ecy as to his time and nation is what in modern times 
people have been undergoing, and especially in Prot- 
estant countries. Has this been for any special fault 
of theirs ; or is it to be counted for a disgrace ? By 
no means. It has even become a proverb : " I would 
rather be wrong with Plato than right with any one 
else." And the writer hereof would rather be wrong 
with some anti-supernaturalists than be right with 
some good people whom he has known at Eome. On 
a choice between poets and merchants of the same 
honesty, it would be beyond all comparison better that 
this world should be managed by men of business than 
by men of " vision and faculty divine." And if there 
is to be advance in the world, as the world is, it can 
only be by steps, for every one of which really there 
must be some drawback. But the recognition of that 
drawback is a large part of philosophy at any time. 



150 ANTI-SUPERNATURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 

And in it indeed is involved that philosophy of human 
nature, never distinctly recognized but under Christ, 
by which it is plain that human creatures are meant to 
be mutually helpful, and " members of one another." 
In a good spirit, the man who contradicts me is one 
side of my mind. And surely and reasonably, there 
must always be a private account to be balanced, if 
only it could be done by any happy mediation, be- 
tween the man of introspection and old books, and the 
man of outlook by the telescope and the chemical retort. 
For neither of them, by his speciality, is likely, as it 
would seem, to be right on all points absolutely. And 
even, perhaps, the best application of a spiritual phi- 
losophy to human wants may be expected from men 
who have known to the uttermost, by experience, what 
Rationalism can do. 

At this point, especially, does the writer hereof re- 
member a very dear life-long friend, a native of New 
York, though a British subject, who has never been 
long absent from his thought while these papers have 
been in preparation. At one time it was a sore trouble 
to him, that he was unable wholly to believe in the 
miracles of the Scriptures ; and all the while his 
doubts about them were more believing than the 
certainties of some other persons. But he lived to 
publish, a little before his sudden death, a work on 
* Unconscious Prophecies, and their Fulfilment." The 
miraculousness of human nature, as connected with a 
world of spirits, and the prophetic susceptibility of hu- 
man nature, — of these things he had become persuaded 
by wide observation and wise induction. And by 
the force simply of wide notice and patient thought, 



ANTI-SUPERNATURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 151 

he had attained to a better sense of prophecy than he 
could ever have got from any theological treatise, of the 
last hundred years. The public was indebted to him 
without ever having known of him. Somewhat of a 
sufferer, but cheerful, hopeful, and almost joyous as to 
his tone of life, and with an easy, infinite confidence 
in God, which was a veritable gift of faith, he was a 
blessing simply to know of. He was always among 
advanced thinkers on all subjects. And that Arthur 
Lupton believed in prophecy may be accounted a sign 
of the times, on account of the scientific manner in 
which his conviction about it had been wrought out. 
For his friends, it is still as though he were within and 
above their horizon, because of the trail of light which 
survives in the sky, and which he left behind when he 
vanished like a shooting-star. And, as Jeremy Taylor 
might have said, there is one who could wish, at the 
end of the great harvest, that his soul may be found in 
the same bundle of life with the soul of his friend. 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 

AND now let the line of remark be resumed, as to 
blindness to things immediately under the eye, 
but of which, every now and then, somebody unexpect- 
edly becomes conscious. Less than a month ago there 
appeared in the Times newspaper, of London, what has 
already been republished in this country, an account 
of an ecstatic in Belgium : — 

" A New Ecstatic. — The Impartial de Soignies devotes 
five columns to a description of a new ecstatic named 
Louise Lateau. It appears from the statement of the Bel- 
gian journal that for some months past this young girl 
presents every Friday the phenomena which are called the 
stigmata of the Passion. She has on her hands, feet, and 
over the heart sanguineous blisters, which exude abundant- 
ly. The ordinary functions of life are suspended. The 
eyes open, and, turned obliquely towards heaven, appear to 
be attentively fixed on some object. The pupils are di- 
lated, the face is pale, the mouth partially opened, and the 
features express a sentiment of admiration mingled with a 
sweet sorrow. At times the object she seems to contem- 
plate produces a painful starting. When not in ecstasy, 
she is in catalepsy. At three o'clock she starts up all at 
once and suddenly flings herself on the flags, without the 
least attempt to protect her face with her hands ; yet she 
receives no injury. She remains for an hour in this hori- 
zontal position, her arms and feet crossed. About half past 
four o'clock she raises herself quickly, without any assist- 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 153 

ance, her arms still in the form of a cross, as if some invis- 
ible power had placed her in this vertical position. She 
then falls on her knees, next sits down, and in about ten 
minutes the body is subjected to a kind of torsion, and the 
Ecstatic of Bois d'Haine — for so she is called — throws 
herself supine on the ground. Then it is that she is waked 
up ; but to accomplish this, the persons about her must be- 
long to the Order of the Passion." 

And now what is to be thought of this account ? It 
is an easy thing for blind leaders of the blind to jeer 
at it, and to get honor of such a kind as their followers 
have to give. But all that cannot avail long in an era 
like the present, in which news and opinions are ex- 
changed so fast. 

Some twenty-five years ago, tales went through the 
newspapers in England as to a young Tyrolese girl, 
who was an ecstatic. At these tales many Protestants 
thanked God that they were not superstitious Catholics. 
But at that time, also, the Puseyite movement was 
gathering strength. A letter was published in The 
Morning Chronicle by the Earl of Shrewsbury, who 
had visited the saintly sufferer, or the suffering saint. 
The letter might have been published in a Catholic 
newspaper, and never have reached a Protestant. For 
what is published in a religious newspaper is read by 
its subscribers only; and if anything extraordinary 
of any kind happens to appear in such a paper, it is 
scarcely regarded as credible, even though written, 
printed, published, and vouched for by some of the 
best men in the world, unless they should happen also 
to go to the same church as the reader. The letter, 
however, of the Earl of Shrewsbury, descriptive of the 



154 THE LAST ECSTATIC. 

Ecstatica of Caldaro, was published in the chief lib- 
eral, secular newspaper of the time in London. By 
that letter there were a few persons, who were made to 
pause with wonder, like the writer hereof. But there 
were still more people, through Puseyite preparation, 
who read the account excited, aghast, and wondering 
what they should do to be saved. And it was not 
without assistance from that letter that many Pusey- 
ites became Catholics. For the old way of settling 
such a point, as was involved in that letter, was no 
longer quite sufficient, although it was very nearly so. 
But there were Puseyites, who could not feel that a 
letter like the earl's, was answered by two or three good 
jokes from Oxford Fellows, or by a running fire of 
laughter all over the country from comfortable rectors, 
strong in their legal position'as members of the Estab- 
lishment. 

And now, how did that letter of the earl's act ? Let 
us see how it was pointed. This, however, can be done 
now only from the book into which the letter grew, by 
additional accounts of other ecstatics. Let it be re- 
membered that the letter was dated from circumstances 
much the same, and in kind exactly the same, as the 
phenomena attendant on the Belgian ecstatic, which 
have just been described. "Are we not safer in be- 
lieving with Maria Mori and the two Domenicas, and 
the great body of the Christian Church, both ancient 
and modern, than in pinning our faith — if such were 
possible — upon the dissenting tenets of one solitary 
fanciful individual, — tenets all of them easily proved to 
be erroneous ? " But becoming still warmer and still 
more personal with his argument, the earl says : " Put- 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 155 

ting all other evidences out of the question, can Dr. 
Pusey give me any one sign and wonder in defence of 
his doctrines, equal to the assurance I have received in 
favor of mine, from these simple, humble, but gifted 
souls?" 

But now, instead of succumbing helplessly to any 
meaning, which anybody may please to put upon a 
prodigy, it would seem to be right to ask, what actual- 
ly the meaning of the prodigy may be. Maria Mori 
may have instanced effects resulting from intense devo- 
tion of a certain kind, without necessarily having been 
thereby marked out as a favorite of heaven, or even as 
an example to be patterned. And unless for persons 
predisposed to think so, really the state of these Ital- 
ian ecstatics, entranced at times, but bedridden, and 
at times cataleptic, clairvoyant often, but very weak, 
and made still more singular as to their condition by 
those strange marks on the body, — all this would not 
necessarily and obviously seem to mean the special 
favor of Heaven, for a particular mode of worship. No- 
doubt, there was something very extraordinary in their 
cases. But that the meaning of those extraordinary 
manifestations bore against Dr. Pusey it is not neces- 
sary to suppose, notwithstanding that some of his fol- 
lowers did think so, to the great discomfort of the 
Church of England. 

In view of his book, to doubt either the earl or the 
witnesses whom he cites as to what was seen, is what 
the present writer would not think of, for a moment. 
Also, he would think it to be a great good if certain 
other people, within a certain sphere, could feel as he 
does. For, truly it is not for everybody, in every sphere, 



156 THE LAST ECSTATIC. 

to get good from everything. And for all persons, out- 
side of what they are ready for, it is better that they 
should flatly deny than weakly affect to believe. 
Though yet there are some few better people who, 
though finite by nature, do yet know and feel them- 
selves to be children of the Infinite, and who therefore 
do not feel bound to deny and denounce everything, 
which they may not be ready to understand, at any 
moment. 

Dr. Pusey must have felt himself sorely pushed by 
the earl at that time, while he was struggling hard to 
be thought a Catholic, when he found himself con- 
trasted for the worse with Domenica Barbagli, the 
ecstatic of Monte San Savino, " this pre-sanctified 
spirit, this chosen soul, undoubtedly favored by seraphic 
communings with her God." But what he felt has 
never appeared, nor yet the way by which he avoided 
the conclusion on to which the earl would have forced 
him. But on his followers the appeal had great effect. 
And, at least, the remembrance of it will be revived by 
the report of the ecstatic in Belgium, so near to Eng- 
land. 

Towards the end of his book the earl, a very candid 
writer, says that his attention had been drawn to mes- 
merism, as accounting for many of the phenomena 
which he had witnessed in the ecstatics. He acknowl- 
edges the pertinency of the suggestion ; but he demurs 
to it as an explanation, for several reasons, of which 
the first is the best, although it is worthless. And that 
reason which the earl alleges, is simply that mesmerism 
is not known in the Tyrol. But he might as well have 
said that electricity and thunder-storms are unknown 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 157 

in the Tyrol, because the names of Benjamin Franklin 
and Joseph Priestley had never been heard there, and 
because, perhaps, an electrifying machine had never 
been introduced into Caldaro or Capriana. And really 
all which the earl witnessed in those ecstatics, about 
whom he wrote, except as to the stigmata, are things 
fairly within the circle of mesmerism. Though very 
curious, and what astound millions of intelligent per- 
sons, yet they are some such effects as could be in- 
duced and manifested by processes which are called 
mesmeric. For mesmerism, as it is called, is by thou- 
sands of years older than Mesmer, good man. The vital 
forces of which he availed himself are, of course, as old 
as Adam : nor was he the first person, by hundreds, 
perhaps, to systematize as to observation and use in con- 
nection with them. And wlien mesmerism was sug- 
gested as accounting for the clairvoyance, catalepsy, 
and trance of the ecstatics, it was not probably meant 
that there were persons who mesmerized them know- 
ingly, on purpose, and by art ; but that accidentally, so 
to say, and naturally too, through intense suffering and 
almost continual fasting, they were in an abnormal 
condition, through which they were readily suscepti- 
ble of catalepsy, clairvoyance, and trance, and through 
which, too, they were liable to be mesmerized by 
chance. And even in illustration of the stigmata, the 
records of mesmerism might be found to furnish some 
curious though distant analogies. And the marks on 
the body, even though they be like those of a crucifix, 
would not seem of necessity aiad exclusively to argue 
the especial favor of God Most High. Perhaps even 
they might more properly be regarded as manifesting 



158 THE LAST ECSTATIC. 

human nature, and the manner in which the body can 
be acted upon from the state of the soul ; the soul of 
the ecstatic being full of longings and expectations, 
and full of sympathy with the sufferings emblemed by 
a crucifix, and also in affinity, perhaps, at the same 
time, preternaturally with attendant spirits of the same 
household of faith as her own. 

The utmost, logically, which would seem to follow 
from the earl's premises would perhaps be, that among 
sensitive, ascetic, and exhausted persons there may be 
a rare case, now and then, which may show that a 
strange marvellous likeness to a crucifix may be in- 
duced by a profoundly reverential contemplation there- 
of. For the mere marvellousness of the thing is not 
of itself necessarily encouraging. It may have been 
supernatural and yet not divine. And miracles have 
sometimes touched where they certainly did not mean 
to sanction. 

Perhaps it ought to be noticed here that ecstatics 
have been long known, and that the word " ecstasy " 
was not probably of Christian origin. The experience 
described by the word was common among the Neo- 
Platonists in the fourth and fifth centuries. Thus, by 
his biographer, Plotinus is said " in ecstasy to have 
seen the supreme god," and also in ecstasy to have 
been elevated from the ground. The manifestation of 
the stigmata, was that by which Francis of Assisi be- 
came famous in the thirteenth century. Since the 
days of St. Francis, there have been about sixty simi- 
lar cases recorded, of which perhaps ten have been 
within the last thirty years. When the stigmata ap- 
peared on the person of Maria Mori, they had even 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 159 

been anticipated by her confessor for five months. 
And one of the ecstatics whom the earl saw, he ex- 
pected would have been favored with the marks, but 
she was not. 

But it is curious, that as to the clairvoyant and cata- 
leptic states, and as to the levitation of the body in 
the cases of these ecstatics, there was nothing detailed 
by the earl as heavenly sanction, but something like it, 
long ago, had been alleged as condemnatory fact, on 
trials for witchcraft. 

Of transference of marks, there have been some cu- 
rious cases by electricity. Once the exact likeness of a 
tree was printed on an object near, by a flash of light- 
ning. 

These words of the earl are noticeable : " Yes ! it is 
under the very shadow of the large crucifix, which is 
suspended over her head, that the spirit of ecstasy is in- 
fused into her." And now for an incident that stops the 
earl's argument short, and which would seem to argue 
the favor of Heaven for Protestants, more distinctly 
than all those sixty ecstatics argue it for Catholics. 
In the " Adversaria " of Isaac Casaubon, there is an ac- 
count of a storm at Wells, in England. The informa- 
tion was given to Casaubon by the Bishop of Ely, who 
received it from the Bishop of Wells, and other per- 
sonal witnesses. On a Sunday morning in the year 
1596, while the people were in the cathedral, there 
was such a tremendous burst of thunder, that in their 
terror the whole congregation knelt together. Though 
a thunderbolt fell, there was no one hurt. "But a 
wonderful thing was afterwards discovered by many 
persons. For images of the cross were found marked 



160 THE LAST ECSTATIC. 

on the bodies of those, who had been at the time in the 
cathedral. And the Bishop of Wells told the Bishop 
of Ely that his wife (and she was a most honorable 
woman) came to him and told him, as a great miracle, 
that there were marks of the cross on her body. But 
when the Bishop laughed at this, his wife uncovered 
her person, and proved that what she had said was 
true. And then he noticed that the same very plain 
mark of the cross was impressed on himself, and as I 
think on his arm. While with others it was on the 
shoulder, the breast, the back, and other parts of the 
body. And that most illustrious man, the Lord of Ely, 
narrated this to me, in such a manner, as forbade any 
doubt about the truth of the history." 

In this brief account there is involved probably a 
grand chapter on psychology, if only one knew how to 
evolve it. But the philosophy of the matter is akin 
to the marks of crucifixion on the ecstatics, much 
more closely than would at first thought seem at all 
likely. Also, there have been persons, as the writer 
hereof can testify, as it happens, on his personal 
knowledge, although they are perhaps more rare than 
ecstatics, with whom have appeared spontaneously on 
the skin, and as though very slightly embossed, letters, 
figures, and flowers. One of these instances was a rose 
of the breadth of two inches, which appeared in an- 
swer to a sudden suggestion, and which was as accu- 
rately marked as in a fine etching. The explanation, 
not of course of the shapes, but of the marks, was that 
they had been made by the blood having been forced 
into capillary veins, so as to press them against the 
cuticle, and thus to redden and slightly raise it. These 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 161 

marks, which had been watched while coming out, 
vanished without leaving a trace in less than ten min- 
utes. As to how this happened, even though it were, 
as it might well seem to be, through an inflation of 
capillary veins, passes conjecture : because a certain 
belief that it was by the agency of an intervening 
spirit, if adopted, is not explanation, but only some 
semblance of information, and is indeed marvel added 
to mystery. 

It is a matter of not unreasonable conjecture, whether 
Dr. Xewman would have entered the Catholic Church 
in his state of mind, if he had known of the experi- 
ence of the Bishop of Wells ; for, not improbably it 
would have seemed to counterbalance the argument 
from the ecstatics, by the Earl of Shrewsbury. 

But however that may be, with the preceding com- 
ments, the latest account of an ecstatic may be read 
by some persons with more patience, than it might 
otherwise have been, and by some others with less be- 
wilderment. For the excitement made by that famous 
letter of the earl's was not so much because of what it 
was in itself, as it was through the temper of the peo- 
ple addressed. They were acted upon by that letter 
as though by an apparition ; whereas they would not 
have been affected by it so strongly, if they had not 
been men of their time, even while trying hard to be- 
long to the Middle Ages, and if they had not been, so 
to say, anti-supernaturalists in reading and observation, 
like almost everybody else. 

The account of the Belgian ecstatic has been seen 
by multitudes of Protestants, but it will have been no- 
ticed by very few persons, because generally the eyes 



162 THE LAST ECSTATIC. 

of Protestants are proof against reporting such things 
to their brains. Marvellous occurrences are as com- 
mon now, perhaps, as ever they were in the Middle 
Ages ; and they are published in the newspapers, to a 
far greater extent than most readers would easily be- 
lieve. But even w^hat are read and accepted as facts are 
seldom or never retained in the mind, but fade from the 
memory like dreams, as having no hold and no proper 
place. For indeed by education, and in accordance 
with the intellectual temper of the age, and as an ef- 
fect of modern literature, there is an effort, unconscious, 
but not therefore the less real, in almost every mind 
to throw off every preternatural recollection as being 
useless, foreign, uncongenial, and inwardly indigestible. 
And thus always many good intelligent persons are 
at the mercy of the first prodigy, which may actually 
strike them. And if they should show themselves in- 
sane with it, it is because really they were already in- 
sane, as having been unreasonably sceptical, as hav- 
ing hardened themselves habitually against the facts 
of the universe, and as having despised the hints 
which are allowed to transpire from time to time as to 
a world of spirit, invisible indeed, but interfused among 
things seen and temporal, and pervading them, though 
commonly it may be without touching. 

And now if any one would ask the writer, as to what 
then he thinks of the stigmata on the persons of the 
ecstatics, he would say that they may be preternatural 
without therefore being divine ; and though they may 
be the effects of a certain kind of intense devotion, 
that they may still not be distinguishing favors. The 
case of Louise Lateau, of Belgium, could it be under- 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 163 

stood as the angels see it, would no doubt be of great 
use for clearly understanding spiritual laws, which 
every person is living under, though blindly. Nor 
does this remark presuppose, that her state must there- 
fore be akin to the angelic ; because it is even from the 
study of disease, that much has been learned as to the 
laws of health. And it is reverently suggested that 
t Louise Lateau is an ecstatic with the stigmata, not 
probably because she is more favored of heaven than 
every other girl in Belgium, nor primarily because even 
of her being a Catholic, but because of some pecu- 
liarity in her constitution, by which anciently perhaps 
she might have been a prophetess, if the Lord had 
needed her ; and by which, too, if she had been a fer- 
vent Friend or an earnest Methodist, she would have 
been receptive of gifts and graces corresponding per- 
haps to her faith, and to such hopes and expectations 
as might have been strong in her, by her religious con- 
nections. 

By peculiarity of constitution, however, is not meant 
anything in kind different from human nature, but 
only something remarkable in degree, — a sensibility in 
receptiveness common to everybody, though only very 
feeble perhaps in most persons ; and which being great 
in itself and from birth, may now and . then operate 
wonderfully, from accidental causes such as fasting, or 
through illness, from some negative and restraining 
powers in the system having been enfeebled. 

A case like this of Louise Lateau ought to be of in- 
finite interest in theology. That there may be no know- 
ing what to make of it is no reason for ignoring it, but 
is a reason rather for keeping it, in mind, against the 



164 THE LAST ECSTATIC. 

coming of light on it from heaven : and which no doubt 
will arrive as soon as men are willing to receive it. 
And it will come probably by channels already exist- 
ent and waiting, psychological, medical, and scientific. 

Of course, all facts are not of equal use to every- 
body, any more than hay is good for chickens as well 
as horses, although oats may be. And there are large 
classes of creatures for whom diamonds must ever be 
valueless, such as bumble-bees, pigs, and the dirt-eat- 
ing men of South Africa. 

And it is not everybody, for whom the case of Louise 
Lateau can be expected to be interesting ; and neither 
is it likely to be so for all theologians, though it really 
ought to be. And there may be some who will wish 
that it had never happened, or had never been pub- 
lished. And what will that wish of theirs be but in- 
fidelity to the truth ; and what will the state of mind 
of such persons be, but blasphemy against the manner 
in which, under God, the world manifests its hidden 
powers ? 

As to the story of Louise Lateau, and other such 
things, there are words of Plato which are worthy of 
notice by all persons, and especially by some good 
Christians, although they are older than Christianity 
by some four hundred years. They are -contained in 
his Second Epistle : " For almost as it seems to me, 
than such as these, there are no histories, which are 
more ridiculous to the herd of men, and none either, 
which to better minds are more wonderful, or more 
capable of inspiring them with a sense of God." 
. And now since this last paragraph was written, there 
has been published a volume entitled " Planchette ; or, 



THE LAST ECSTATIC. 165 

The Despair of Science." And if indeed science should 
despair of the planchette to-day, it ought not to do so 
long, any more than the left hand should despair of its 
ability, while there is a good right hand to help it. 
And through science, when it is informed by psychol- 
ogy, the strangeness of the planchette may develop 
like the Greek mystery about amber. Amber, with 
the Greeks, was " electron " ; and with rubbing it, was 
got what was called electricity. It was an unaccount- 
able, useless manifestation. But since the time of 
Aristotle, and through science, it has developed into 
speech like lightning, between man and man, and 
across distances perhaps twenty or thirty times greater 
than any flash of lightning ever illumined. 

In the volume referred to there is quoted a letter 
written at Eochester, nineteen years ago, and which 
was published in many newspapers at the time. That 
letter was by the present writer. It told fairly what 
was witnessed at a spiritual sitting, and which, as it 
happened, was nothing satisfactory whatever. And if 
the writer did not conclude correctly as to the motives 
of the mediums, it may be some excuse for him that 
at that time the Eochester knockings were to him an 
unheard-of novelty, and that the mediums themselves 
at that time knew nothing of the laws and limitations 
of the phenomena which were manifested through 
them. 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

GENERALLY at present the minds of men are 
very impatient of anything supernatural. It is 
a result partly of the materialistic philosophy which 
lately dominated in all things, and partly also of the 
hard, practical tone of the times, by which everything 
is judged according as it will work somehow or other, 
and promptly in a factory or a creed. 

Now and then perhaps on a Sunday, or in the evening 
twilight, a man thinks gently on some strange occur- 
rence, bordering perhaps on the supernatural, which he 
has heard of, and which perhaps may have been a fam- 
ily tradition. And thus .he has his mind filled with 
thoughts and feelings from his inner spirit. The air 
about him feels as though almost it were aglow with 
latent light. In his ears there is an expectant sense, 
as though of something just ready to speak. And al- 
most it is as though he felt himself, through all his 
senses, porous and open to a surrounding world of spir- 
it. But with a rap on the door, or a sudden start, the 
man is himself again, as he thinks : though indeed it 
is only his inferior self which he thus suddenly be- 
comes. And he is a man of the world again, because 
some divine affinities of his nature have suddenly 
shrunk into unconsciousness. And so, in a moment, 
things have become incredible for him, with which, 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 167 

however, his soul had been delighting herself, as con- 
nected with the communion of saints, the significance 
of miracles, and the nearness of the spiritual world. 

There is an inner spirit in us, or rather there is an 
interior state of the spirit, which sometimes we know 
of ; and when silently and softly we seem to breathe the 
air of another world than this ; and when there comes 
over us a peace, not as the world gives ; and when our 
thoughts come in upon our minds steadily and grandly, 
and as though from afar off; and when the heart feels, 
as it were, the magnitude of some crisis closing round 
it; and when indeed we are a wonder to ourselves. 
And under the fresh effect of such an experience 
the miracles of history seem to be but in fair keep- 
ing with human nature, and even with our individual 
selves, because of " the signs and wonders " which our 
own souls are capable of giving out. But more quick- 
ly than the sensitive plant, at the touch of flesh and 
blood, does this inner self shrink and contract, and, 
immortal as it is, yet seem to fade and disappear. 

The Book of Eevelation is not for reading in any and 
every mood. And it is not at all possible that a Mate- 
rialist can understand St. John, as he writes, " I was 
in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a 
great voice, as of a trumpet." And a man must be a 
Spiritualist by philosophy, and at least as intelligently 
so as George Fox, the Quaker, before he can know what 
was to be listened to and how, when he reads, " He 
that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith 
unto the churches.' , 

And it is because the Book of Eevelation, manifest- 
ly, is not for every state of mind that we may infer or 



168 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

at least suspect that the Scriptures, generally, may not 
always be read aright by human eyes, simply as being 
very sharp. The Bible cannot possibly be a revelation 
of the Spirit, to the angry minds of textual controver- 
sialists. And therein lies indeed the true objection to 
the use of creeds. For supposing that Christianity, as 
a whole, were capable of being put into words, an at- 
tempt at a creed might be reasonably and fairly made, 
on every fresh kaleidoscopic combination of texts or 
doctrines, which a congregation or an individual might 
believe. But for really Christian effect, it would seem 
as though every individual spirit ought for itself to 
find and feel the Spirit in the Scriptures, notwithstand- 
ing any intellectual aids, by which reverentially it 
might be thought desirable that a person should be 
prepared for that solemn communion of the finite with 
the infinite. 

By the temper of the times it is the last thing to be 
wished for, or hoped for, and so, of course, it would be 
the very last thing to be minded, — anything fresh of a 
spiritual origin. It is a disease of this age, though now 
rapidly abating, that was just breaking out when the 
word for it was invented by Balph Cudworth, which 
was pneumatophobia, — a shrinking from spirit, as 
cause, or explanation, or hope, and thereby and there- 
fore, of course, from belief even, as very strongly felt. 

There have been ages not barbarous, nor yet besot- 
ted, when a variation from the order of nature, or what 
seemed to be such, was what kingdoms would have 
consulted about, through eminent men. But to-day, 
by thousands of the most intelligent persons, varia- 
tions from the laws of nature might be heard of and 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 169 

even credited, and yet awaken no interest. And now 
why should this be, or even be possible ? Simply it is 
because it is not in the people to be interested. And 
that is because they have not such a belief in the spir- 
itual world, as that they can possibly imagine even the 
possibility of a sign of it near them. The spiritual 
world about them, and they themselves now in it, and 
connected with it, and as certainly so as they ever 
will be, after they have lost or slipped their bodies, 
and according to philosophy and revelation both ! It 
is a thing to them inconceivable, provoking, and ridic- 
ulous, and what they can neither think nor feel. But 
really, whether it pleases them or not, it is so that they 
are made ; and also the thing which they do not like 
to think has been the glory of the greatest thinkers, 
since the world began, and has been the inspiring and 
informing thought, by which, as by a thermometer, the 
spiritual height of any age is to be measured, — not its 
height indeed, as to the externality and fashion of 
life, nor as to science which is conversant with the ex- 
ternality of the universe, but as to faith and poetry, 
and those virtues and graces, which in greater or less 
numbers are their inseparable concomitants. 

Often a good Christian will say, " I hope, and for 
worlds I would not but think, that after I am dead 
somehow I shall be resuscitated and live in God for- 
ever." And then it is a terrible shock to him, should 
he be reminded that now already in God " we live and 
move and have our being." And then such a man 
will look about him in despair, and wish that he were 
not bound quite to believe it. For he is thinking to 
himself the while, " What ! living in God now, and I 
8 



170 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

what I am ? " And the worst of it is what the man 
himself does not know, that so probably it will have 
to be with him to all eternity, so long as he himself is 
what he is, — so long as, somehow or other, the primi- 
tive instincts of his spirit are stifled : because an actual 
spirit, as he is even now, though embodied for a while, 
the man has no feeling of the spiritual universe sur- 
rounding him, no sense of it as power, nor any imme- 
diate expectations from it, by the way either of fear or 
hope. 

We are spiritual creatures now, though embodied, 
and really living in a spiritual world, however much 
it may be clouded to our perceptions, or it would n£ver 
have been written for Christians, " Draw nigh to God, 
and he will draw nigh to you." And that which is 
written is written, although we are what we are, and 
notwithstanding however divinely we may walk, that 
we are not to expect ever to be met by the glories 
which were witnessed by " the seven angels before the 
throne of God." But still, just as really as there were 
unearthly splendors for those heavenly eyes to see, when 
they looked, so there are experiences of unworldly ori- 
gin which, with expectation, our spirits are in the way 
to find, and which serve as assurances of faith and an- 
swers to prayer. Speaking like an immortal, but with 
a sense of our infantile state for fleshliness, says St. 
John, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it 
doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know 
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for 
we shall see him as he is." Already in us prisoners 
of nature there are powers, susceptibilities, and right- 
ful expectations which reach beyond the region of 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 171 

nature for their objects. " Our Father which art in 
heaven" may begin a prayer, which may be heard 
beyond the sun, and quite apart from the laws of 
acoustics and gravitation ; and perhaps also it may be 
offered as incense before the throne by angels in whose 
view, amid wide-spread splendors, all earths and suns 
are but like thin vapors. 

The child unborn has its senses for the world upon 
which it is to emerge : eyes for the light by which it 
is to see ; ears for those waves of sound through the 
atmosphere by which it is to hear, and infantile in- 
stincts, serving for life and prophetic of it, and which 
it delights a mother's heart to recognize. And indeed 
a child in the womb has not only an eye for seeing 
about the world into which it is to be born, but an 
eye also which will fit a telescope upwards and a mi- 
croscope downwards for exploration ; and has also con- 
genital faculties, through which it will grow into the 
ways of the world, and fill a place in society. And 
just so, in this womb of nature, wherein " the crea- 
ture waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God," 
human beings have all the spiritual faculties which are 
to fit them for the spiritual world, — eyes of the spirit, 
a spiritual understanding, ears with which to hear 
what the Spirit saith, and — strange, unearthly, but 
sure experience ! — a susceptibility by which " the 
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities ; for we know not 
what we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit 
itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which 
cannot be uttered." 

All that is here attempted to be said, about persons 
in the flesh being open to effects from the world of 



172 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

spirit, is strong conviction, is inmost knowledge to the 
man who has ever felt the Spirit praying inside of his 
spirit, and informing his prayers, with an earnestness, 
and faith, and wisdom which were a wonder to him- 
self, and an awful mystery, when at the end he said 
"Amen." And the inference from this is what St. 
Paul shall declare. And the words are from his grand 
argument on the struggle of the creature in its earth- 
ly environment, and against it, and they are that we 
mortals are " waiting for the adoption, to wit, the re- 
demption of our body." 

" There is a natural body, and there is " — the apos- 
tle does not say that there is to be, or shall be, but 
that there is — u and there is a spiritual body." And 
the Greek word for renewed life after death recognizes 
that statement of St. Paul's in a manner which the 
Latin-English word " resurrection" does not, common- 
ly. By dissolution in the earth, " bare grain, it may 
chance of wheat, or of some other grain," shows what 
a body had been latent in it, though invisible, yet alive 
and wonderful, " first the blade, then the ear, and af- 
ter that the full corn in the ear." And there is not a 
man living but has in him latent a spiritual body, 
endowed already with all those faculties, by which 
hereafter he may be free of the heavens, and feel 
himself at home in the house of many mansions, and 
as St. Paul would say, no stranger or foreigner, but a 
fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household 
of God. The saint on earth has in him already all 
that he is to be in the great hereafter. 

And thus for a human being with a twofold consti- 
tution, by which, mentally, he is adapted to this earth, 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 173 

and spiritually also to a new earth, under new heavens, 
it might seem that not impossibly or incredibly a person 
might now and then, and through some one or other of 
the thousand sensibilities by which he is an immortal 
soul, have experiences outside of the sphere of the nat- 
ural man. And unless barred from such a supposition by 
a divine revelation, it might seem reasonable to antici- 
pate that sometimes, with the weakening of " the body 
of this death," the latent faculties of the immortal 
spirit might even begin to manifest themselves. And 
indeed than the preternatural experiences of the dying, 
there are no phenomena perhaps in mental history 
which are more common. Said Schiller, for his last 
words in dying, " So many things are becoming to me 
so much plainer than they were." And no doubt the 
light in which he had wished to live was brightening 
on his soul. But more express even than this is the 
multitudinous testimony, which might easily be gath- 
ered, as to the death-bed experiences of persons within 
the last few years, and by which it would seem as 
though the departing spirit were sometimes met, before 
parting from the body, by some sign of the new world 
near it, by unearthly music perhaps, or by some spirit 
who was once an old friend, or by some vision of glory 
unutterable. 

But also, in the same manner, and for analogous 
reasons, strange preternatural experiences, originating 
with spiritual causes, may reasonably be credited, for 
persons of peculiar conditions, whether congenital as 
to the body, or accidentally incurred by disease, or 
occasioned perhaps by an unusual sensitiveness, as to 
some of the forces which are necessary to vitality, 



174 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

electric, magnetic, odic, and others perhaps more occult 
than they. Thus somnambulism supposes the natural 
eye to be asleep, while the eye of the spirit sees through 
it. In clairvoyance there is sight independently of 
matter, as to the substance of the eye, and whether 
bandaged or not, and as to walls or long distances ; 
and yet, as an effect of looking through a material eye- 
ball, the spirit sees material objects. But indeed won- 
ders would seem to be likely enough, as the experi- 
ences of spirits in the flesh, and of mortals on their 
way to immortality. And how, then, might it be prop- ' 
er that such things should be judged of ? Just as such 
things ought to be, by such creatures as men and espe- 
cially by the enlightened disciples of Christ, — by rules 
of probability and analogy and good sense, and by the 
grand ruling test as to what " the Spirit itself beareth 
witness with our spirits." And indeed St. Paul could 
imagine the possibility of an angel from heaven preach- 
ing what Christian common sense might boldly and at 
once count accursed. 

Always in an emergency of thought, it is well that a 
man should bethink himself as to where he is, and what 
he is. Because all things are not uniformly of the same 
significance everywhere. That may seem to be erro- 
neous which is absolutely correct. And scientifically 
between navigators and the polar star there are causes 
of variation, as to guidance, which have to be allowed 
for, if that guidance is to prove exact. The polar star 
is polar truly for only the wisest people. And it is 
not to everybody, idle and studious alike, and not to 
the prejudiced at all, that even the Scriptures can 
yield their true meaning. What a man does not want 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 175 

to see, he will be very likely not to recognize. And 
this may happen about a fact, perhaps of no great im- 
portance in itself, but which yet, because of his state 
of mind, might for him individually be newness of 
thought, or a clew to some baffling and bewildering 
mystery. 

That method of picking and choosing evidences, 
that fashion of thinking only alongside of well-trod- 
den roads, that determination which idolizes agreeable 
facts, and winks hard against what are irreconcilable, 
which has been so common in theology, and for the 
sake of it, — of all that, what possible outcome can there 
be but folly, such as earlier or later must become plain ? 
" Unclean spirits " are not a very pleasant subject of 
thought to any one, and to theologians in some en- 
lightened regions almost they are inconceivable and 
incredible. And yet because of the New Testament, 
it might seem as though a person could not quite well 
understand what Christ was in the world, without some 
philosophy or understanding as to those " unclean spir- 
its " whom he commanded, and against whom he gave 
his apostles power. And in the Old Testament, " fa- 
miliar spirits" and their kindred are as essential to 
the action as Moses and Elijah. And for lack of this 
perception, there are many ingenious and elaborate 
works on the Old Testament, which could only be 
equalled by some such work as a history of the battle 
of Waterloo, wherein the French should be regarded, 
for some philosophical reasons, as having been only 
figures of speech. And yet the historical reality of a 
" familiar spirit " made certain by modern analogies, 
would probably be but an unwelcome fact, in many 



176 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

theological schools. Yet facts — facts are the words in 
which the universe reads to man its unending lesson. 
They may be odious by themselves, sometimes, while 
yet through their connections, they may be very val- 
uable. But because of human weakness, it is often 
the alternative about a new fact, that either it is an 
idol, or else anathema. And truly also a fact is 
often treated in this manner, when really, except as 
being novel for a few people, it is nothing more than a 
pebble, a mere make-weight in the universe, which 
pebble, however just in its place and office, is of uni- 
versal concern. 

But with anything extraordinary to think of, or phe- 
nomenal, a man should remember himself. And then 
instead of finding himself on a judgment-seat, or right- 
fully glowing with the consciousness of a seraph, he 
will feel himself to be but a mortal creature, walking 
and working about a little spot in a little planet, at- 
tendant upon a sun, which sun itself is reasonably sus- 
pected of being also only a planet. But " he that hum- 
bleth himself shall be exalted." And when a man in 
that manner has felt his nothingness, he is ready then 
to appreciate the compliment which science pays him, 
by her assurance that the weight of his body, his mere 
fleshly clothing, is what the universe could not spare, 
without planets and suns and fixed stars running to- 
gether, and there being an end of all things. 

And in this way, even were there no other way, 
might a man reasonably suspect that perhaps also 
there are conditions concerning him as a spirit, of 
which he may not necessarily be aware. But then it 
is said that between mortal and immortal, and between 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 177 

matter and spirit, that the difference is such that 
there can be no reasoning with a man from any cir- 
cumstances of to-day as to his connections with the 
spiritual and eternal. 

And by some, who hold that this earth is isolated 
from the spiritual universe surrounding it, on the sub- 
ject of miracles, often axioms are used as authorities, 
which really have long been anile and effete. That 
spirit can never impinge upon matter is assumed as 
an axiom by Thomas Aquinas ; and it is pleaded to- 
day like a text from the gospel. But even supposing 
that it were true, it would not therefore follow that 
means might not be found or contrived, by which 
devils or angels might make themselves sensibly felt, 
and might act upon matter. It is true that spirit is 
spirit, and matter is matter. But then what is spirit, 
and what is matter ? Of the difference between the 
two there are notions of mediaeval origin, which are 
obstinately pleaded to-day, for ends which Thomas 
Aquinas and the schoolmen would never have sanc- 
tioned. Also, what did Thomas Aquinas know of 
electricity, galvanism, or magnetism ? What did he 
know of the odic force ? He knew no more of them 
than he did of optics, or chemical affinities, or the law 
of gravitation. Definitions as to spirit and matter, 
originating ages before Bacon, adduced to-day on the 
subject of miracles are gross anachronisms. 

Matter ! what is that as a basis whence to argue 
psychologically, while even by science it is speculated 
that all the matter of this earth may perhaps be com- 
pressible into a nut-shell ? Eeally science is the 
young sister of spiritualism, and is of no kin whatever 
8* L 



178 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

with materialism, to the positive knowledge of those 
who know them all three. The old mediaeval under- 
standing as to spirit and matter is obsolete ; for through 
science matter itself seems semi-spiritualized. And, 
so to say, rightly understood, matter and spirit, in the 
common use of the words, are not opposites, except in 
some such way as that by which the roots of a tree 
in the ground are opposite to the blossoms high up 
in the air. 

Spirit cannot impinge upon matter, because spirit 
is spirit ; and spirit is impalpable, and therefore it 
cannot affect what is solid and hard ! But when con- 
fronted these are but old-world positions, which prop- 
erly were obsolete long ago. For perhaps the fluids 
called electric, galvanic, and magnetic are material, or 
perhaps they are spiritual, or perhaps they traverse 
fields intermediate between matter and spirit. But on 
any one of these suppositions, there are one or two old 
philosophical axioms as to spirit and matter, which are 
falsified at once, just as owls show themselves to be 
out of time and place when they attempt to fly in the 
broad sunshine. 

The body of a man is not such matter as might 
sometimes seem to be supposed by some philosophers, 
but is really " dust of the earth," porous throughout 
every particle, to electricity and magnetism, which at 
least are semblances of spiritual forces. And if 
Thomas Aquinas had lived in these last days, instead 
of writing what he did on some points, and getting 
quoted by people of another dialect in philosophy than 
his, as having meant what he certainly did not intend, 
he would probably have held that matter was such a 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 179 

mere nothing, such a mere meeting-place of immate- 
rial forces, as scarcely itself to need notice. 

Instead of something like untanned leather, a man 
has a skin, by which he is open to influences and ef- 
fects from the ends of the world, from the sun, and 
from the circumambient atmosphere. And all the 
more he learns from science, the more wonderfully 
does he feel this. And spiritually, when he is willing 
to attend, he finds himself connected in an equally 
w^ondrous manner. And many a man who thinks 
himself to be an Anti-Supernaturalist, with an honest 
confession of himself, as to some of his private expe- 
riences, which, for fear of being nonsensical, he is 
hardly willing to acknowledge even to himself, and 
also with fair respect for testimony from friends whom 
he personally esteems, — many a man, in this way, 
would find that a field of wonder widened round him, 
away in the far east of which he would feel that very 
probably there may indeed have been gates of revela- 
tion, and the place of rising of the sun of righteous- 
ness. 

In Boston an Englishman was staying, who " many 
lands and many men had seen," and also many years, 
since the time of his leaving school. He certainly in 
his life had never dreamed of the school, and for many 
years had scarcely even had a thought of it. But one 
night he had a dream of it. Accompanied by his 
aunt, he walked up the road which led to the school, 
wondering all the while at the perfectness with which 
he remembered every little object. He passed in 
through the gate into the yard, when he noticed heaps 
of rubbish under the walls ; on which, he turned to his 



180 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

aunt and said, " This stuff ought to be cleared away. 
It never ought to be allowed here." Then, with the 
old familiar feeling, he went up the steps, and opened 
the door of the school, and was surprised at seeing, 
not boys at their desks, but six or eight workmen 
busy on the demolition of the building. And at this 
point he awoke. But in the morning, while he was 
at the breakfast-table, he received a foreign letter, 
which proved to be from a trustee of the old gram- 
mar school, soliciting a subscription from him towards 
the rebuilding of the edifice. It was an undertaking 
in which his aunt was much interested ; and she had 
herself given the address for the letter. 

The following narrative is vouched for by the best 
possible evidence. When the emigration for Califor- 
nia had begun, a youth belonging to the town of 
Lynn embarked for San Francisco. After some months 
had elapsed, his mother dreamed that she saw him, 
that he looked wofully wasted, and that he stretched 
out his arms to her, and cried, " mother, mother, 
take me. I am dying of thirst." Early the next day, 
she went to a very intelligent gentleman, with her 
heart full of agony : and at her request, he put the 
history and date of her experience into writing. After 
many months, eleven perhaps, a letter reached her 
from the captain of the ship in which her son had 
sailed. The vessel had suffered much in storms off 
Cape Horn. Because of the long passage, the supply 
of water had not lasted. And for want of water, sev- 
eral persons on board of the vessel had died before 
reaching port ; and among them was her son. And 
the time of his death, as given by the captain, corre- 
sponded with that night of the mother's dream. 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 181 

These two incidents have never been published be- 
fore ; and it is because they are new that they are 
given ; for it would be very easy to cite hundreds, and 
perhaps thousands, of recorded dreams, which are at 
least as impressive as the preceding, and some of 
which are even more striking. f 

Some six or seven years ago a vessel arrived in Bos- 
ton with a great number of shipwrecked people on 
board. The ship in which they had been sailing had 
foundered at sea, and left them on the water, clinging, 
most of them, to floating objects. A vessel, bound to 
Boston, arrived in their midst and picked them up. 
But how did that ship get amongst them ? The cap- 
tain of it said that he was on deck at night, and a 
bird flew in his face, and at the same time he was 
filled with a strong, strange feeling for putting the ship 
about, and sailing back on the course by which he had 
been coming. A second time, and a third time, a 
bird flew in his face. And the feeling with him for 
putting the ship about became irresistible. And after 
sailing for three hours in the dark, he found himself to 
be a savior at a great shipwreck. 

In such incidents as the preceding history abounds, 
whether ancient or modern, classical or profane. And 
why is it that they are read contemptuously, or heard 
with impatient pity ? Simply it is because of what is 
ignorantly fancied about the laws of nature, as being 
exclusive of marvels of unknown origin. And just as 
though also the laws of nature, to common notion, w r ould 
not have been against the possibility of submarine whis- 
pering, if it had ever been thought of, before electri- 
city had yielded itself to human management ! And 



182 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 

just as though a thousand and ten thousand ' similar 
facts do not imply something in common, some com- 
mon cause, and it may be probably some common law ! 
And what if that should seem to be a spiritual law ? 
Is that a supposition so improbable as that even Chris- 
tians cannot ^think it ? Such Christians certainly as 
many people say they are, cannot think it : and worse 
than that, they would rather not believe it, as they say ; 
and what is worse still than that, they avow that they 
would rather not believe what might seem to diminish 
the peculiarity of the miracles of the Scriptures. " ye 
of little faith ! " As though God would be less God for 
any man's knowing something about him of his own 
knowledge ! As though the Bible would be less credible 
for being confirmed in any way, even the least ! As 
though it had not been a Scriptural promise, as to some 
spirit-stirring times, both in the Old Testament and in 
the New : " Your young men shall see visions, and 
your old men shall dream dreams " ! And as though 
it were not one grand purpose of the Bible to develop 
the mysteriousness of human nature, and to make 
men feel, with many other strange things, that wheth- 
er there be hosts below them or not, or hosts above, 
that by Jesus Christ they have been made " kings 
and priests unto God and his Father " ! 

There is a containing sky about us, in which the 
aurora flames. There is an air about us, in which it 
thunders and lightens. And surrounding us there is 
an atmosphere, through which we are affected for life 
and for death, in ways which, year by year, are enu- 
merated by science more and more wonderfully. 

A spiritual atmosphere about us, or an atmosphere 



MATTER AND SPIRIT. 183 

slightly spiritual, or something which we mortals 
should call such, — why should it be accounted strange 
or incredible ? Surely not because the knowledge of it 
was not given by Moses, or through the New Testament. 
And if such a belief be fairly deducible by observed 
facts, what is it but a thing for which to thank God, as 
enabling believers in the Scriptures to conform the 
better to the rules of what is called modern science, 
even on its own plane ? Eevelation ! People who 
believe in it ought to be afraid of nothing, as against 
it. And no man, with a soul to believe, does believe 
in it, with earthly misgivings of any kind. 

It has been supposed, what is even the besetting 
difficulty of many earnest persons, that there never 
can have been a call upon mortals from the world im- 
mortal, for want of a way, a channel. Does therefore 
the significance of that call diminish because there 
might seem to be a greater possibility for it ? Says 
some one, " Eh, eh ! I never believed it. But now I 
see a quarter, a law, a spiritual connection, whence 
that old call may have come/' But that would not 
seem to be all that is to be said, unless a man should 
think more of the importance of his own sense than 
of what the universe itself may have to say to him. 
And when such a man finds his own earthiness to be 
more spiritual than he had thought, it is surely no 
reason for his beginning afresh to doubt about his 
spiritual connections. 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 



THIS is a great subject, which can he noticed in 
this place only just as it illustrates the line of 
thought in these essays. 

The phenomena of Spiritualism, even the simpler, 
are very curious in themselves, but they are important 
mainly for the method which is in them, and for the 
philosophy which they involve. Witchcraft was no 
good in its day, certainly ; " but," said John Wesley, 
" to give up witchcraft is to give up the Bible." And, 
similarly, to gainsay the possibility of Spiritualism is 
to repudiate the spiritual philosophy of the Scriptures. 
The writer hereof has what is for him an opinion 
about Spiritualism, but it would need the space of a 
volume in which to justify as well as unfold it. And 
therefore any mention of it here should be taken, just 
as it is made, merely by w^ay of allusion, and for the 
special points indicated. 

How vast and various is the universe, even to hu- 
man apprehension ! The infinity surrounding them, 
men are ready enough to remember for glory, but not 
for humility. And so, under the lamp-light of histo- 
ry, merely, some great philosophers show very strange- 
*ly, as critical occupants of the universe. So, often, on 
one subject or another, have even great men shown 
themselves to be as blind as ants in a hillock. What 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 185 

would ants be the wiser, if alongside of their hill 
there were a highway of commerce reaching to the 
ends of the world, or an observatory by which, as to 
view, the heavens are brought down ? It is true that 
emmets are born w T ith the knowledge which they need, 
and that human beings are born to the knowledge 
into which they are to grow. Yet still many men are 
as blind as ants to " the balancings of the clouds " ; 
and many immortal souls have their faculties for un- 
derstanding and belief fast closed against evidences 
of the spiritual universe about them. And as to the 
things of the spirit, and the philosophy of the spirit- 
ual world, and the ongoings of the spiritual universe, 
there are still those even who can " see and not per- 
ceive," and who are altogether amenable to the remon- 
strance, " Having eyes, see ye not ? and having ears, 
hear ye not ? " 

Is it indeed true philosophy, which thinks that every 
fresh suggestion from the universe must necessarily be 
just what might have been looked for ? And as to 
signs and effects ' from the spiritual world, is mere 
probability any kind of a rule by which for souls to 
judge, who themselves are but of yesterday's creation ? 
Yet there are people who are confident as to the possi- 
bilities of the universe, merely through their own feel 
of it. But even though his five senses be sharpened 
to the utmost, and be helped by every kind of instru- 
ment and contrivance, yet what is any man for a judge 
as to the likelihoods of a universe, which appeals, not 
to five senses only, but perhaps to five hundred facul- 
ties ! And the claim of Christianity is that the soul 
has senses or sensibilities for channels and quarters, 



186 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

outside of the range of what technically is called sci- 
ence. 

In the " Eecognitions of Clement," that oldest of 
Christian novels, says Simon Magus, " While all sensa- 
tions possible belong to one of the five senses, that 
Power which is superior to all things, cannot add any 
new one." But to this it is replied by Peter, " That is 
false ; for there is a sixth sense, that of prescience ; 
for the other five senses are capable only of knowl- 
edge, but the sixth of foreknowledge ; which sense 
the prophets had." As being a spirit imprisoned in a 
body, a man has extra-mural relations, and as a living 
soul he has supersensual susceptibilities. And so it 
might seem to be, in itself, anything but incredible, if, 
now and then, some soul should have something to re- 
port as to some foregleam of immortality ; or. as to some 
glimpse faintly caught of the scenery or the company, 
to which it is itself predestined ; or as to occurrences 
as fitful as the aurora of the north, and as wayward as 
the lightning, and which, for earthly effect, start per- 
haps from the meeting-point between spirit and mat- 
ter ; and which point, it may be, is more mysterious 
than even spirit itself is. 

To what can the outbreak of what is called " Spir- 
itualism " be likened for effect ? On the world at 
large, it has been as though a ghost had appeared at a 
sitting of the Koyal Society, in London. But a thing 
may seem to be out of place, because really the ob- 
server himself is out of his own proper place. And many 
Christians have been startled, provoked, and confounded 
by " Spiritualism " because of the extent to which they 
themselves were out of place, intellectually and relig- 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 187 

iously. Not improbably, if Christians had been such 
believers as they ought to have been, the thing which 
technically is called Spiritualism, might never have 
been manifested amongst them. Near Jerusalem 
once, if the multitude of the disciples had not praised 
God, the stones might immediately have cried out. 
The testimony of the stones would not, perhaps, have 
been very edifying, except by being very startling. 
Even though the various conditions necessary to the 
phenomena of Spiritualism are not well known, yet it 
is conceivable and it is highly probable that, if the 
atmosphere of the Christian Church had been what it 
ought to have been, instead of there being mediums 
and their attendant marvels in the world, there would 
to-day have been in the Church the manifestation of 
the Spirit, and one good man would have been full of 
the Holy Ghost, and another man, perhaps, would have 
seen visions, and still another would have abounded in 
hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost ; while for 
the public benefit one man would hav.e shown the gift 
of healing, and another have been endowed with the 
word of wisdom, as a gift. 

As it is, however, some of the more material of the 
Spiritualistic phenomena, such as noises, are as though 
the stones cried out, to assure men that really they are 
not as much at home in the universe as they fancy, — 
that there may be qualities, and ways, and a soul in 
the universe, such as they have never thought of, — 
and that themselves instead of being altogether self- 
sufficient, actually that they are but like bubbles made 
of the will of God and spared of his mercy. 

There is a philosophy, and that, too, of fervent 



188 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

Christians, which would have taken up at its very 
commencement, this portentous subject of Spiritual- 
ism as a very little thing, — the philosophy of Henry 
More and Ealph Cudworth, and a long ascending line 
of scholars, reaching up to the Fathers, and in amongst 
the foundations of the Church. From this philosophy, 
which implies the coexistence of two worlds for id an, 
— one for the body and another for the spirit, — think- 
ers have been greatly estranged during the last century, 
because of the inordinate and disproportionate atten- 
tion which has been drawn to the material world, by 
the novelty and multitude of its disclosures scientifi- 
cally. But the more that the range of the five senses 
is explored, and the more definitely it is ascertained 
what the properties are of which matter is susceptible, 
the more certain it becomes that in the universe there 
is a causative power transcending what the sun and 
moon have ever felt, and of which man is an object. 

Spiritualism ought to be nothing novel or strange to 
a theologian, and would not be but for the anomalous 
state of theology itself. Men have been so intent, so 
long, on splitting hairs metaphysically, for theologi- 
cal use, that almost the breadth itself of theology has 
been forgotten. By the modes which are called Spirit- 
ualistic people are to-day communicating with spirits 
from a plane which is common to them, with the Chi- 
nese, the Esquimaux, and the aborigines of Australia, 
and probably with the prophets of ancient Greece, and 
the priests of ancient Eome, and with the last philo- 
sophic survivors of Hellenism. And if any Christians 
think that thereby there is over them the supremacy 
of heavenly illumination, by that much, at least, they 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 189 

may believe themselves, as before heaven, to be stand- 
ing apart from where the early Christians stood. 

All the preceding remarks will hold true by those 
laws of evidence by which still higher things than 
Spiritualism will be judged a hundred years hence. 
For, what is under our eyes proverbially is the last 
thing to be noticed. But when, with the recession of 
time, it has got to be viewed on the plane of history, 
along with other distant even though more important 
objects, then it becomes what cannot so easily be over- 
looked. And it will certainly be well for some persons, 
if by fairness or spiritual receptiveness they should be 
enabled to anticipate the use of that information, which 
is certain to pass on to the next generation, and if 
possibly in no other way, then certainly as an unopened 
letter, wonderful in itself, but more wonderful still, 
perhaps, as having never been minded when it was 
written. 

Eightly considered, though more fully than is possi- 
ble here, the manner in which the announcement of 
the phenomena commonly called Spiritualistic, was 
received is almost as instructive as the manifestations 
themselves. For it is only by an invincible, inward 
anti-supernaturalism, which has grown with them from 
childhood, that commonly men of ordinary sense have 
been able to withstand the multitudinous testimony, 
which exists as to some of the simpler phenomena 
which are called Spiritualistic. Nor is it out of his 
own strength, nor yet out of his own weakness, that a 
man is able to contradict, as he sometimes does ; but it 
is from the spirit of his age, from the breath which he 
draws of public opinion, and from his being one of a 



190 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

banded host. And this remark is made quite inde- 
pendently of what the thing called Spiritualism may 
be in itself, whether sense or nonsense, and whether 
good, bad, or indifferent. " Spiritualism is the work of 
evil spirits," says one who had never in his life before 
had a word to say about devil or evil spirits, and into 
whose theological mind never a thought of one could 
have entered, but as a ready way of answering what 
he was not prepared to argue. Says another, " It is 
either the Devil, or else it is imposture, or else it is all 
a misunderstanding by the people concerned." This 
might be the judgment of some personage standing 
aback and above the origin of all philosophy and all 
action on this earth, but for the comments which are 
adjoined, and which show that the utterance was sim- 
ply a superficial view of possible chances on the sub- 
ject, and made by a man who knew that he did really 
know nothing at all about it. So again there was once 
a warning against Spiritualism given from the text : 
" And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them 
that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep 
and that mutter : should not a people seek unto their 
God ? " The warning was well meant, and much of it 
was good. But in the ear of reason it was all spoiled, 
when there was added to it, from conscientiousness, 
that really there never had been any " familiar spirits," 
and that their mention in the Scriptures was only by 
way of accommodation to the prejudices of ignorant 
times. And so it was that a theologian thought he 
was denouncing from the Scriptures, what all the 
while was actually corroborating the Scriptures against 
him. 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 191 

Often, when overwhelmed by evidence, and unable 
to deny the reality of the phenomena of Spiritualism, 
people say, " Well, what of it ! what does it all show ? " 
To which the answer is simple enough, though it can- 
not always be made for fear of discourtesy, that the 
Spiritualistic phenomena are fairly and properly for 
intelligent persons, and fully as much so as algebra, or 
trigonometry, or logarithms. Says one, "I have no 
doubt that, in the presence of some persons, called me- 
diums, tables dance and are rapped upon, and in fact I 
know it ; and I have no doubt that persons have been 
raised into the air without any human agency, because 
of what I have been told. And I will acknowledge that 
the secret thoughts of my mind have been recognized 
and published in a way which I could not have be- 
lieved, and could hardly have wished. And it is all very 
funny ; but what of it ? " And this is sometimes said as 
confidently as though the intellectual system of the uni- 
verse w^ould echo the words and say, " What of it ? " 

And what of the theology which talks in that manner, 
what of that ? What else can it be than a mere sem- 
blance of something, the mere ghost of a faith, a shell 
empty alike of learning, sense, and earnestness ? The 
phenomena of Spiritualism acknowledged to be real, and 
yet scorned as being unimportant, unsuggestive, mean- 
ingless, and unworthy of theological notice ! What 
flippancy ! What mere blind leadership of the blind 
such theology must be ! What a fantastic trick before 
high heaven ! " Thou hast a name that thou livest, 
and art dead." 

As to the significance of those phenomena, it is 
enough to say, that by them Bishop * Douglass, with 



192 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM, 

his great name in theology, would have been amazed, 
as though by a latter-day revelation ; and that Hugh 
Farmer, formerly the great authority as to miracles, 
would have found himself thereby flatly contradicted 
on important points, though not much to his grief, 
because of the good, honest man he was. 

St. Bonaventura, while writing the life of St. Francis 
of Assisi, and entranced in thought, was, according to 
history, seen to rise in the air. And Thomas Aquinas, 
who happened accidentally to be a witness of the mar- 
vel, said, " Let us leave a saint to write for a saint.' , 
This anecdote has been much ridiculed, and yet it has a 
wide kindred in history. Thus it is said that Ignatius 
Loyola was seen in prayer to be raised more than a 
foot from the ground, saying, " my God ! my Lord ! 
that men knew thee ! " But for persons who would 
wish to belong to the communion of saints, whether 
with or without a pope, it would seem to be important 
and interesting, if anything might enable them to be- 
lieve, instead of harshly denying what implicates such 
names as Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas. 

According to Farmer, in his Essay on Miracles, a 
human body raised into the air, without any human 
agency whatever, would be a real and evident miracle, 
because contrary to the known course of nature. A 
man may affirm a thing to be true, and say, " What of 
it ? " But if he affirms that to be true which Hugh 
Farmer could not imagine as possible, except by the 
direct intervention of God, the man may be certain 
that he has done a great thing, whether he knows it or 
not, or whether he knows or does not know how to 
make use of his own knowledge. The levitation of 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 193 

the body is affirmed in history, in regard to persons 
canonized as saints, and also as to people accused of 
witchcraft, and it has been again and again published 
as to Pope Pius the Seventh. At present, for almost 
all Protestant eyes, even when acknowledged as being 
probably true, it is an incongruous fact, but surely it 
ought not therefore to be despised as useless ; but rath- 
er it should be reverentially remembered, as being 
likely, some day, to flash light on the mystery of the 
connection between the soul and the body. And in- 
deed it is really anything but ridiculous to think of, 
by a person of reading, and of good common sense and 
earnestness. And if it does not immediately teach any- 
thing, it may yet draw one up into the mount of con- 
templation, whence things have a different look to what 
they have in the common world below, and whence, too, 
the laws of nature seem but like the surface, and not 
the soul of things, — a surface, perhaps, of a lake, on 
which for ripple, and figure, and glancing sheen, it is 
because " the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
it cometh, and whither it goeth." And it may be added 
that also the remaining clause of the text is true, not 
only as to the conversion of a man morally, which 
properly it means, but also as to the change which a 
man may, and often does, experience as to his estimate 
of nature and science, under a vivid sense of what is 
omnipotent and omniscient, — "So is every one that 
is born of the Spirit." 

" And what of it ? " many good people have said, 
while acknowledging that, in connection with what is 
called Spiritualism, their secret thoughts had been rec- 



194 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

ognized and answered" through many secret windings ; 
as though such a fact were nothing more than the 
capricious barking of a dog as to significance. In a 
recent theological work, Dr. Walter Scott says about 
some printed account of a boy, who was supposed to 
be a demoniac, and to have been sensible of an adju- 
ration, even when only addressed to him in the secrecy 
of the mind, " I would ask, Are we warranted by either 
Scripture or reason to believe that any evil spirit, even 
if it had been Satan himself, can know the thoughts, 
the most secret workings and prayers of the heart in 
the way in which this is supposed to have been done ? 
I must think that we are not." The theology of Dr. 
Scott, in the history of opinion, is what dates mainly 
from St. Augustine. And the writings of Augustine 
should have instructed him differently from that state- 
ment of his, and by the saint's personal experience. 

The previous quotation is contained in a work, highly 
important at least as to the auspices under which it 
was published, and the man who knows anything dif- 
ferently, and thinks nothing of it, stands opposed sim- 
ply by information to people whose looks would aston- 
ish him, if they were assembled about him in their 
multitude and respectability. And if such a man should 
further wish to try out of the present age, and in the 
last, the importance of what, though real, he accounts 
as worthless, then let him listen to a remark of Jortin 
on Ecclesiastical History. " It seems to be beyond the 
abilities of any created being to know the thoughts of 
a man, particularly of a man who is agitated by no 
passion, and gives no indications of his mind by any 
outward sign." Such a different thing it is, for a man 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 195 

to talk just out of himself, and for a momentary pur- 
pose, from being ready to hold his position in full view 
of historj 7 - and men of earnest thought ! 

It may be, that two persons might be found of the 
same school in philosophy, according at least to the 
words in which one would claim fellow-belief with the 
other ; and of these two, one would say that the phe- 
nomena of Spiritualism are impossible, while the other 
would say that they are as meaningless as the miracles 
of the Scriptures, which may or not be true. But now 
thence it might seem, as though the occurrence of an 
impossibility might be nothing wonderful. 

One man, with the first report of the simpler phe- 
nomena of Spiritualism, exclaims, " That is the Devil." 
And another, with the first certain communication of 
something which could not be other than preternat- 
urally given, exclaims, " The heavens are open again." 
And besides these, there are the large classes who say, 
some in one way and some in another, but all of them 
conjointly what is tantamount to this, — "Ah, well, 
very likely, no doubt, but perhaps there is possibly, no 
knowing truly, so to say, anything about anything." 

In such an atmosphere of thought, spiritually, as 
almost all people would seem to be living in, so thin 
and hazy and uninspiring, so dead and bewildering, it 
might seem as though for a theologian, anything spir- 
itual, even though it might really be devilish, ought 
to be useful, as enabling him perhaps to find his where- 
abouts, or, as the French say, " to face the East " ; 
though certainly it could not aid him to do so, unless 
by nature or grace he might happen to be ready for 
the guidance. 



196 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

It is sometimes pronounced as though judicially, for 
a verdict, " By acclamation of the public, Spiritualism 
is a thing which cannot be entertained for a moment." 
But now how is this pretended verdict ever supposed 
to be made up ? It is agreed upon by people who do 
not agree among themselves, even as to the facts con- 
cerned. One party says, " By the laws of nature what 
is called Spiritualism is impossible, and therefore it 
is not a subject to be entertained for a moment." 
Another party says, " Spiritualism is true, horribly and 
fearfully ; and, therefore, as a subject of thought can- 
not be entertained for a moment." And a third party 
says, " The intuitions of the individual mind are for 
the individual. And therefore also for the public, as 
far as the public may be complicated with his individ- 
uality, the intuitions of the individual are supreme. 
And from outside whatever would conflict with the 
supremacy of intuition, may be accounted extraneous, 
intrusive, and, like Spiritualism, a thing not to be en- 
tertained for a moment." And a fourth party says, 
" The Bible is enough for us, and as we have not time 
for everything, Spiritualism cannot by us be enter- 
tained for a moment." Strange parties these to a 
common verdict, — parties who disagree about the 
facts concerned, and who yet are summed up together 
for apparently a unanimous opinion. 

But whatever Spiritualism may be, it has had a sin- 
gular, instructive effect, by the remarks which it has 
elicited from philosophers taken by surprise ; from 
" children tossed to and fro and carried about with every 
wind of doctrine " ; from self-opinionated men, exas- 
perated by the rebelliousness of facts against them ; 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 197 

and by theologians who, with denying the possibility of 
Spiritualism, have suddenly found themselves flatly 
opposed to the Bible. For both theology and philos- 
ophy have been wofully at fault about Spiritualism ; 
which, however, they never would have been, only that 
first they had themselves become egregiously faulty 
by having become too set in doctrine, and by having 
thereby largely foregone the perception and the love 
of facts, as evolved by daily experience, or as recorded 
in history. 

While he was a Jew, Neander was turned towards 
Christianity by the Pedagogue of Plutarch. This inci- 
dent was a sign of the times, really. For by an old Pa- 
gan was done unintentionally, what all the Christian 
apologists of the day might have attempted in vain. 
For, by timidity and by the taint of anti-supernatural- 
ism in many places, Christianity has been so weakened 
and attenuated, as that it cannot be spiritually or in- 
tellectually attractive, for persons of intelligence. And 
indeed by a man of spiritual insight and critical fac- 
ulty, there is more Christianity to be distilled out of 
Paganism itself, than some theologians seem able to find 
in all the New Testament. 

Belief in a spiritual world, as the early Christians 
felt it, has become so much weakened by sickly intel- 
lectualisms of materialistic kinship, that really what 
the earliest disciples eschewed might serve to-day as 
a first lesson in pneumatology, for many Christian 
divines. Many believers in Spiritualism are as igno- 
rant as other people, and some of them as ignorant 
perhaps as even Abyssinian Christians. But the Spir- 
itualism of the most ignorant Spiritualist persuades 



' 198 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

him, of his personal knowledge, that the demonology 
of the New Testament was true. 

As has been stated before, Spiritualism is not of any 
particular church or creed, any more than a telescope 
is, or an electric telegraph, or a badly kept post-office, 
or a miscellaneous library. But just as Paganism 
itself might help to make some Christian believers to 
be better believers than they are, so even Spiritualism 
might avail theologically for some distinguished di- 
vines. And truly such is the spiritual ignorance of 
this highly scientific age, that " an unclean spirit," fit 
only for exorcism in ancient times, would to-day, for 
importance, in almost any theological school, be like 
a new revelation ; because a real, earnest belief in 
the demoniacs of the New Testament would necessi- 
tate the formation of a pneumatology of the Scrip- 
tures, for want of which, to nearly all readers, the sen- 
tences of the Bible sometimes hold together but like 
ropes of sand. 

"And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a cer- 
tain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met 
us." If anything to-day might make her seem, by 
analogy or otherwise, to have been exactly what 
the writer says, then there would be many an 
honest doctor of divinity, on that knowledge, who 
would confess that what little pneumatology he might 
have was wrong, and also his philosophy of religion, 
and also that inspiration was a more real thing than 
he had ever thought. But now the account of that 
girl, with the spirit of Pytho, is to be believed in, 
according to Spiritualism, exactly as it is written, and 
not stupidly, but with a lively, intelligent apprehen- 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 199 

sion. Can it be that anything in the Scriptures should 
be the plainer for Spiritualism ? Certainly, and no 
great wonder either ! How many various understand- 
ings there are of the New Testament, — Catholic, 
Trinitarian, Arian, Unitarian, Calvinistic, Arminian, 
and five, ten, twenty others ! There can only one of 
them be right absolutely, and probably there is not 
even one. Such various understandings of the same 
book argue the obfuscated state of theology, and ar- 
gue too the probability, that theologians differ from 
one another so variously, for something else than the 
letter of the Scriptures ; and indeed because of a some- 
thing which, more or less, they all lack, and which 
in full strength with them would be "the unity of 
the Spirit " ; and because largely of the general infec- 
tiousness of the anti-supernaturalism of the times. 
But, as has been already remarked, it is such a state of 
things at present, that even " the unclean spirits " men- 
tioned in the New Testament, if made certain by anal- 
ogy or any other way, and even though of the same 
class as the " dumb and deaf spirit," would yet, simply 
as being known of, be of great use to wanderers in 
the field of theology, bewildered as it now is. 

Spiritual rappings have been derided as mere mate- 
rialism, but only, however, by persons who must have 
been intensely materialistic without knowing it ; be- 
cause an intelligent rapping or word by a spirit, suggests 
to a spiritually-minded man, that there must be chan- 
nels and conditions through which a spirit can partially 
return into nature, and also that possibly there may 
be some human beings, who may be spiritually acted 
upon, as well as tables. Then, too, it is said that Spirit- 



200 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

ualism is worthless as a subject of thought, because the 
spirits never tell what was not known before. But no 
matter how stupidly it may be done, if a spirit can show 
himself at all, he does the greatest thing of the age, on 
this earth ; for he returns by a door where theology has 
said there was no opening. 

And now again let it be said that all this, which may 
seem novel and startling on the first reading, is yet 
nothing strange, if read in the spirit of the Scriptures, 
and by the light of history. 

Spiritualism, dated even as of Eochester origin, is of 
infinite importance to the state of mind which denies its 
possibility. But to the mind which believes it, it may 
be very mischievous, or at best may minister to a poor, 
low kind of spirituality, apart from the philosophy con- 
nected with it, and which involves in its completeness 
both modern science and ancient history, and the ex- 
periences of almost every primitive tribe ; and also which 
appeals to the New Testament as to the discerning of 
spirits, and which strengthens itself as to its positions, 
by the history of the Christian Church, while it was in 
conflict with heathenism. 

In manner there is a great likeness between the 
mistakes respectively of some men of science and some 
adepts of Spiritualism, — between philosophers with 
telescope and microscope, who think that they know all 
about God, because of their having searched out some 
of his ways, and Spiritualists who think that they know 
all about the spiritual universe, from having a few spirits 
to talk with. And in neither of these classes, do the 
professors remember the limitations, under which they 
learn. For through a telescope God is not seen, but 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 201 

only the divine way of handling dirt. And through 
spiritual mediums there is communication with the 
spiritual universe, but only as to the first step perhaps 
on an endless flight, and on which step, also, it is, as 
Henry More said two hundred years ago, that often, 
spirits " are very great fools ; that there are as great fools 
in the other world as there are in this." 

By the necessity of things, the best effect from the 
spiritual world cannot ordinarily result from such com- 
munications as departed spirits can ever word, though 
even they may themselves rank with seraphs in wis- 
dom ; but it must come from such thought as may be 
quickened in good minds, well prepared by education, 
and by faith in the Holy Spirit, with a willingness to 
wait for it and to trust it. And in the same manner, 
however mysterious may be the way of it, the first true 
thought of God in any soul is by revelation ; for it is 
a flash of light in the mind, or it is a sudden terror 
of the conscience, or it may be that it is an infinite 
yearning of love. But whatever it may really be, it 
is a something with very different qualities from any- 
thing, which can enter the mind through the tube of 
a telescope, or be started in the understanding purely 
by science. 

There have been many outbursts on the world, which 
have been in a general sense like what is now called 
Spiritualism. Such was the movement which began 
with George Fox. Such also was the commencement 
of what is called Shakerism, and such, though in a 
manner less strongly marked, were the beginnings of 
the people called Irvingites, of some thirty years ago, 
and also of the Franciscans, who are an order of friars 
9* 



202 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

in the Catholic Church. These, however, are only in- 
stances out of a multitude of such things, which might 
be cited at will, from history, ancient and modern, and 
from the experiences of the last thirty years. 

Through George Fox, " the Spirit " was a rebellion 
against that formalism of thought, into which English- 
men began to fall soon after the Eeformation. And 
whatever else it may be, the Spiritualism which is com- 
monly supposed to have begun at Eochester is a witness 
against the materialism to which men were inclining 
to succumb, under the undue influence of science. And 
indeed as to these things there actually is a philosophy, 
and which is none the less sure for being only dis- 
tantly akin to mineralogy and ichthyology. 

There are two sides to a thunder-storm, — what is 
below and what is above, as to state. And similarly, 
there are effects to be experienced, and even perhaps 
to be incurred, by laws which act through human 
wants, and which may be not unlike perhaps to the 
demands of a decaying region below, on an atmosphere 
above, and which get answered by thunder and light- 
ning and sanitary good. 

Electricity is generated in more ways than one, as 
by the spontaneity of nature, by artificial contrivances, 
and by what may be called accidental causes. And so 
spiritual fire may flash on a man from above ; or it 
may be caught from another like a flame ; or it may 
burst from some heart, like spontaneous combustion, 
and like the experience of the Psalmist : " My heart was 
hot within me ; while I was musing, the fire burned : 
then spake I with my tongue." 

The recent revival in the north of Ireland, like 



THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 203 

twenty other revivals, was an outburst of spiritual 
power, by which many hundreds, and even perhaps 
thousands of souls were acted upon in a way, by 
which they manifested many things, in curious analogy 
with the phenomena of Spiritualism. Why was this ? 
And if that revival were a reality, and Spiritualism be 
not an imposture, why were not the two things exactly 
alike as to their effect ? Simply because the people 
concerned were not the same people in the two matters, 
and were not looking in one and the same direction. 
Pressure on a man bodily may vary in many ways, 
and so may pressure on a man spiritually. And per- 
haps the connections and susceptibilities of a man 
through his spirit may be innumerably more than 
through his body. 

The Spirit, as it came on Samson, w T as one thing, for 
result; and as it came upon Paul, it was another; 
though to both it was from the same God that the 
visitations were made. 

In an age characterized by an infestation of "un- 
clean spirits" exorcism was an appropriate manifes- 
tation of power superhuman or extra-natural. And if 
to-day tables are tipped, or danced about, or made to 
seem intelligent, contrary to the laws of nature, it may 
be because of what has seemed right to spirits, perhaps 
at no great height above this earth, and far below that 
step on which the seraphs stand in ranks about the 
throne of God. Or it may be that table-tippings and 
similar things are even directly concurrent with the 
designs of Providence, and are to be accounted as 
means, whereby the minds of men may be exorcised 
from fascination by the laws of nature, which, though 



204 THE OUTBURST OF SPIRITUALISM. 

true enough for men as mere mortals, are not the half 
of the truth for them as immortal souls. 

And if through some mediums Spiritualism should 
seem to stand apart from Christianity, -and therefore to 
be strange and portentous, then let an incident in the 
Gospels be considered ; and let it be noticed how easily 
the confidence of a Christian ought to transcend even 
the heroism of mere honesty. "And John answered 
and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy 
name ;• and we forbade him, because he followeth not 
with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not ; 
for he that is not against us is for us." 



THOUGHTS OX SPIEITUALISM. 

SPIEITUALISM is properly the antithesis of ma- 
terialism, and holds that man is not only an 
animated, highly organized body, but also a living 
soul, and from his birth connected with a world 
spiritual and eternal. And Spiritualism technically 
so called is simply an affirmation of the foregoing 
statement, under the interest and conviction produced 
by certain phenomena of the last few years, and which 
are very curious, and apparently preternatural. 

A medium may be lowly and ignorant, and also 
laden with every infirmity of the flesh, and yet can be 
the sudden, utter confutation of materialism, even while 
it is affecting to lean upon science, and to deck itself 
with the beauties of poetry. But some persons may 
think it strange, that instruction is to be got from a 
lowly, ignorant medium. But surely the loftiest phi- 
losophy should be able to condescend to new facts, 
anywhere, and at any time. Yet often the phenomena 
of Spiritualism have been despised by persons who 
yet gloried, under science, in having been instructed, 
by mere stones and petrified bones, as* to the order of 
creation, and as to the look and habits of creatures, 
animals, and vegetables, as they appeared and fulfilled 
their times and uses. 

To the writer hereof, the phenomena of Spiritualism 



206 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

are useful, not so much because of what they are in 
themselves as incidents, as because they are evidences 
and illustrations as to pneumatology. Through the 
persons called mediums is there really communication 
with the world of spirit? That there is intercourse 
to be had with that world is certain ; but as to the 
spirit to be talked with, there can be no absolute cer- 
tainty. Because of some men at least, the minds lie 
open to the inspection of spirits, like the most com- 
pendious and convenient of day-books, so as that, 
through a medium, a spirit can read to a man out of 
his own memory things which he had himself for- 
gotten. And for this and other reasons an impostor- 
spirit can have a mortal at such a disadvantage, as that 
actually for the present writer, conviction as to the 
identity of a spirit communicating through a medium, 
would not be wrought by even fifty times of the 
amount of evidence, which would suffice for identify- 
ing a person in a court of law. How is this then ? 
And what, then, does this mean ? It means that mor- 
tals must remember at least what they are ; and that 
as clay-clad creatures they are but dull and blind as 
to the spiritual world and its ways and occupants. 
Nor should this be any marvel ; " for Satan himself is 
transformed into an angel of light." 

And now the way is open by which the writer can 
express himself still more freely. From his own ex- 
perience, then,*he is satisfied that some spirits have 
power to come into the realm of nature some little 
way, and so as to be able to make some signs, such as 
the moving of objects, the ringing of bells, playing on 
a harp, and touching a person, and such also as taking 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 207 

possession of the body of some living person, more or 
less completely, and using the hand for writing, and 
the voice for speaking, and the eyes for seeing with, 
after the manner of a mesmeric clairvoyant, only much 
more successfully. Also he knows that the death of a 
person can be announced, and that even also minute 
peculiar circumstances attending it can be detailed, 
some days before there could be even a possibility of 
such information being to be given by natural means. 
Also the writer would tell, in obedience to a sense of 
duty, of his having seen and examined and seen vanish 
ghost-hands, — hands of spirit, which had been material- 
ized as to surface, at least, and which had thereby been 
made capable of looking and doing, for a little while 
and to some little purpose, like hands of flesh and 
blood. 

There may be, and perhaps, all things considered, 
there really is, through a medium, sometimes at least, 
communication between friends in this world and 
friends departed ; though perhaps it may be as rare as 
the loving appearance of a mother to a distant child, 
whom she could not but long for as she died. For 
reliable intercourse between a person in this world and 
a particular spirit in the world of spirits, there must be 
a right adjustment of conditions, of which some perhaps 
are known, but of which many more are not even to be 
conjectured. 

But now really, of my vanished friend, I am sure as 
to the love, already and out of my heart, beyond all 
assurance which he could ever possibly give me, by 
getting his hand inside of the sphere of nature, and 
making signs to me; just as when he was a mortal 



208 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

I credited him for affection, beyond what he ever 
uttered, or what I should have wished to hear him 
breathe. 

What, then, do these phenomena testify ? They wit- 
ness as to human nature what it is in itself, and what 
it is open to, through exposure or by grace. And they 
are proofs as to what a world of mystery it is, in which 
men live. And also they are challenges to inquiring 
minds. 

People are amazed at the phenomena of Spiritualism, 
and astounded by them, and are sometimes even scep- 
tical as to their possibility ; and all the while, really, 
they are but the accidents of our transcendent con- 
nections, of our being immortal though mortal, and 
spiritual while yet of the earth, earthy. Are they 
therefore supernal? No. And the proneness which 
there is to worship prodigies, though they should be 
only such things as haunted houses or wonderful 
dreams, begins really in the same state of mind as 
that in a theologian, which defines a miracle as being 
a suspension of the laws of nature. By making too 
much of the supernatural, it may actually be nullified 
as to usefulness. 

And indeed to such a pass had things come, on the 
subject of miracles, among honest controversialists, that 
it might seem as though it had been in the order of 
Providence that the phenomena of Spiritualism should 
be developed, merely as materials for pneumatology, 
and for the use of competent observers. And by this, 
it is not necessary to suppose that Spiritualism is 
divine, any more than is the cholera which enforces 
useful lessons. There are diseases of the spirit, which 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 209 

begin with God's mercy, and which end more merci- 
fully still. And it would not be without historical 
analogies, as strong almost as demonstration, if it should 
be said that the Spiritualism of to-day, so abundant, 
familiar, extensive, is a reaction, not of the will of 
man of course, but of the constitution of the universe, 
against the materialism, which was beginning to affect 
Christianity itself as an easy conquest. 

Spiritualism is of great interest, as restoring the 
background of the Scriptures, as a picture, and as there- 
by also making the foreground more vivid, if not more 
intelligible. By Spiritualism certainty is restored as 
to the familiar spirit of the Old Testament, and as to 
the nature of the unclean spirits mentioned in the New 
Testament, as to the history of the woman of Endor, as 
to the seductive nature of the worship of Baal, and as 
to the actual possession of a certain damsel by a spirit 
of Pytho. And there is no honest divine, among 
Protestants, but would say, if those things were made 
certain, that then the field of theology would widen 
about him, and have indistinct traces grow into plain 
paths, and have also certain dark quarters in it illu- 
mined with unexpected light. And if Spiritualism 
can illustrate the manner in which Saul prophesied 
from an evil spirit, it aids thereby, some little at 
least, in making intelligible the manner in which 
" the Spirit of God came upon him ; and he prophe- 
sied." By Spiritualism, too, for Christian use, is 
affirmed emphatically and amended as to translation, 
that text which latterly has been understood distinctly 
by very few divines. " Now the Spirit speaketh ex- 
pressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from 

N 



210 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

the faith, giving heed to wandering spirits, and the in- 
structions of demons." 

And if Nature for a theologian be suggestive of many- 
contrarieties, so also is that region in the spiritual world 
which is nearest to the natural, and whence mostly- 
spiritual approaches are made to men. And just as the 
Christian has a faith, — which through all her regions 
Nature can only illustrate humbly, and never fully cor- 
roborate, — so also the faith of a Christian is what can be 
curiously indeed, but yet only partially, supported by 
evidences from the spiritual world, such as can be given 
through tables, or even by the hands and tongues of 
men, as mediums. 

The reach upwards of the human soul, the yearning 
affinity of its faith, surmounts the region of nature, and 
goes up beyond the level of the world of spirits, and 
aspires after what alone is its proper object, — the Spirit 
of God Most High. 

There are men of intellect at this day, who would 
readily believe in Moses, if merely they could be satis- 
fied as to the magicians of Egypt, who yielded to him. 
There have been persons, darkened in their minds by 
materialism, who, with seeing merely what they thought 
was an apparition, have had their eyes so thoroughly 
and effectually opened, as that the spiritual world, and 
all their relations to it, were credible at once and in- 
telligible. And there have been travellers who have 
returned from the East, stronger in their faith as Chris- 
tians, for knowing of the preternatural things, which 
in some places, the natives sometimes assemble for, 
at their temples. . And there have been persons who 
h&ve been benefited by the counterpart of what was 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 211 

anciently accounted as dangerous and unworthy, — " the 
familiar spirit." These and many other such things 
may, under Heaven, be good, not so much because of 
what they are in themselves, as because of the lowliness 
of the persons for whom they can be lessons. Many a 
man has thought that the heavens were opening above 
him, because of the spiritual phenomena which he had 
experienced. Whereas mainly the things were wonder- 
ful only to his spiritual ignorance, only to his never 
having known of matters with which, in one age or 
another, and in one place or another, the human race 
have always been familiar. Height above height ! 
There are many steps from an emmet to " a familiar 
spirit " ; but more than they countlessly are the steps 
between the level of " familiar spirits" and the first 
even of those spiritual heights, down from which 
comes "every good gift and every perfect gift." 

What are called the Spiritualistic phenomena are 
never all of them manifested through one medium. 
Sometimes a person is a channel for one marvel, and 
sometimes for two, three, four, and five varieties of the 
marvellous. But of all these marvels, there is scarce- 
ly one but reaches out into history in all directions. 
And there has scarcely ever been an age, but, in 
one place or another, was familiar with two, three, or 
more of the prodigies of the present day. Of marvels 
united to-day in the same medium, some have been 
evidences on which persons have been canonized as 
saints in the Church ; and others have been proofs on 
which poor wretches have been executed as witches ; 
and one at least, in the same age, has served as con- 
clusive testimony in Italy as to holiness, and in Eng- 



212 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

land as to deviltry. It is so as a fact, and perhaps 
also, under Providence, it is vouchsafed as a privilege, 
that by the commonness of these spiritual phenomena, 
it is as though the past returned upon the present, and 
offered itself again for study, and the chance of a bet- 
ter understanding. 

Sometimes the phenomena of Spiritualism remind 
one of agencies active in the Scriptures, and some- 
times of narratives in the ancient classics ; sometimes 
of Plotinus, the scholarly heathen of fifteen hundred 
years ago, and sometimes of St. Augustine, the great 
father and doctor of the Church, and continually also 
of the lives of saints, and the charges against wizards, 
and of the records of the Catholic Church. And in- 
deed there is no general reader, with his eyes more 
than half open, who is acquainted with Spiritualism, 
but recognizes the existence of the common phenom- 
ena of Spiritualism, from north to south, the world 
round, among all primitive nations and tribes, even 
though described as ignorantly as things commonly are 
by mere travellers. The angekok of the Esquimaux 
is exactly some good American medium. And at the 
other end of the world, in ISTew Zealand, are phenom- 
ena which correspond spiritually with those among 
the Esquimaux. And Madagascar offers for examina- 
tion the same state of things spiritually, which obtains 
among the Maoris, and among their Northern oppo- 
sites. Through spiritual mediums to-day there are 
concentrated, within an area of two hundred miles 
round Boston, phenomena which are akin to the an- 
cient oracles, and to the marvels of Mohammedanism, 
as attested by Oriental writers and by European trav- 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 213 

ellers, and to the miracles of the Catholic Church, 
during the last — during indeed all the years since 
the Catholic Church has been specially Eoman Catho- 
lic. 

The Spiritualism of to-day is nothing new, and 
might even by the Scriptures, almost, be called as old 
as Adam. What there is new in it is simply the 
easiness with which preternatural phenomena are to 
be got at. But may not this be in accordance with 
that grand overruling law, by which one change, and 
another, and another are like successive mile-marks 
along the earth, while yet also under the arch of the 
heavens ? Under God, the material universe is al- 
lowed to disclose its laws astronomically, electrically, 
chemically, optically, magnetically, dynamically. And 
so might it not then seem to be by analogy, if con- 
currently, also the spiritual world should appear to 
be opening before mortals ? As a mortal within a 
hundred years, how much man has been enlightened 
as to the earth, which he lives in, and also as to the 
wide kindred of worlds which sparkle in the sky at 
night! And proportionately, under Providence, it 
might seem as though openings and disclosures might 
be expected as to the position of man as an immortal 
soul, among the influences, forces, and inhabitants of 
the spiritual universe. 

As has been said already, the Spiritualistic phe- 
nomena of to-day are simply easier of approach, and 
more common perhaps than they have ever been be- 
fore. And that they are not new, whole volumes of 
evidence might be adduced to show. In the "Life 
of a Chinese Traveller in India," the autobiographer 



214 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

exalts China, although Brahma had not been born in 
it, because there "they know how to make demons 
and spirits appear." Just about two thousand years 
ago there is said to have been in the upper classes in 
China a great panic about death, and for which the 
writings of Confucius were no comfort. And upon 
this ensued a great resort to the schools of Tao-tse : 
the Tao-ists, at this time, having become great theur- 
gists, and even professing to give prescriptions for dis- 
ease from the prince of demons, in his own handwrit- 
ing. At this present time a spiritual medium is called 
in China, " a celestial doctor." 

And now let us read evidence from as different a 
quarter from China as can well be found. In his 
" Treatise on the Soul," Tertullian gives what probably 
was one of his Montanist experiences. Nobody could 
define better than he the difference between body and 
soul, so that when he speaks of the soul as being cor- 
poreal, he is to be understood as meaning that the soul 
is " a spiritual body." " To the soul also we attribute 
corporeal outlines, not only from our judgment being 
persuaded of its corporeal character, but also as decided 
for us, by grace, through revelation. For because we 
recognize the gifts of the Spirit, we have been favored 
with obtaining a prophecy, after the manner of St. John. 
At this very day there is with us a sister endowed with 
the gift of revelations, which she receives in spiritual 
ecstasy, during the services of Sunday. She converses 
with angels, and sometimes even with the Lord, and 
both sees and hears holy things. She discerns the 
heart of some persons, and she prescribes medicines to 
those who wish. But now according as the Scriptures 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 215 

are read, or Psalms are sung, or addresses are delivered, 
or prayers are offered, are supplied the subjects of her 
visions. On one occasion we discussed something or 
other about the Soul, when as it happened this sister 
was in the Spirit. The people being dismissed at the 
conclusion of the services, in accordance with her custom 
of telling me whatever she sees, — for indeed these things 
are all most carefully, reported, so as that they may be, 
tested, — says she, " There is shown to me a human soul. 
And truly the spirit Vas seen, but not empty, not des- 
titute of all qualities, but in such a manner as that it 
would even allow itself to be held. And it was tender, 
lucid, and of an aerial color. And in all respects it was 
of the human form." Tertullian then adds that if this 
corporeality of the soul be not credible from its reason- 
ableness, yet that it ought to be so from this vision, 
which was not without God as a witness, and not 
without some concurrence from that apostle, who is 
the appropriate surety as to future gifts in the Church. 
Eound Tao-tse and Tertullian, in regard to the super- 
natural, in their respective eras, might easily be as- 
sembled a crowd of witnesses, Socrates and Plato, 
Plutarch and perhaps more than half the people of 
whom he w^as the biographer, Pliny, and it may be 
almost all the classical authors, nearly every father of 
the Church, and nearly every historian of the Catholic 
Church, during the Middle Ages. And if these mag- 
nates of intellect could be assembled together, they 
would be found agreed in a state of mind, to which at 
once would be credible such works as Baxter's " Cer- 
tainty of the World of Spirits," and Aubrey's Miscel- 
lanies, and Turner's Providences, compiled though these 



216 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

volumes largely are from incidents, such as transpire at 
present merely to be despised, or at best to be whis- 
pered among friends only in moments of confidence. 
And now of the state of mind of all these great think- 
ers, and as to the preternatural occurrences which they 
wrote about, and as to the modern marvels, which they 
would have been ready to credit, Spiritualism furnishes 
the explanation, being, as it is, the key which fits an 
intricate lock, and yielding as it does to intelligent in- 
quirers knowledge as to the laws involved in portents 
and prodigies. 

And now possibly somebody will exclaim, " Then the 
writer thinks Spiritualism is divine." But now he 
does not think so, any more than he would think that 
the dry old bone would be divine, from out of which, 
as belonging to any creature whatever, it is said that an 
eminent naturalist could evolve the outline and habits 
of the animal, when it was alive, and therefore also the 
general character of the climate and country in which 
it lived. Learning, to-day, reaches over a wider field 
than some people would suppose ; and even the meth- 
ods of science are applicable in ways which some 
persons have never thought of. Earthquakes, the 
plague, the black death ! What is there to be named, 
as mischief, like what folly, like what even fool-hardi- 
ness has been in theology ? In manners, there is no- 
body so insolent as a person of weak pretensions ; and 
in theology there is nobody so bigoted as the clergy- 
man who is too weak inwardly to digest the creed, which 
outwardly he has had to mark and learn. 

Many Christians are provoked by the phenomena of 
Spiritualism, in just the same way as they have been 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 217 

annoyed sometimes by the marvels which have been 
reported as attendant on religious revivals. A spiritual 
novelty troubles them, unsettles them in their minds, 
and makes them feel as though nothing were certain. 
And this is because they do not half know themselves. 
For, man as a spiritual being, whether looking towards 
heaven or towards hell, or towards some opening be- 
tween the two, with earnest longing, is thereby in af- 
finity with the powers of a spiritual world, and capable 
of being quickened by them, as to faculties in him 
which ordinarily are latent. But truly, if the universe 
be infinite, it must have myriads of qualities ; and if 
God be the head thereof, and we " heirs of God, and 
joint heirs with Christ," we must have senses, suscep- 
tibilities in 'us, many more than five. And it would 
seem as though such a multifarious nature might, now 
and then, by accident or the favor of Heaven, express 
itself or be receptive in ways, which are outside of the 
utilities of ordinary life : just as some common flower 
with five petals might show ten with cultivation. 

If tables, by the presence of a medium, should simply 
beat time to sacred music, millions of people would be- 
lieve that the heavens did thereby vouchsafe to show 
their sympathy with men. But as that tipping of the 
table is not for sacred music only, but for anything else 
almost, just as man talks with man, it would seem as 
though something through it might be inferred, more 
important still, as information, than even the sympathy 
of the heavens. For of heavenly sympathy with him, 
there is no poor wretch but ought to be sure, who has 
ever been inside of a church. But if, through a table 
or anything else, there be signified from outside of this 
10 



218 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

visible world, a common understanding with man, and 
as though of all kinds of persons, good and bad, wise 
and silly, then is man informed, not so much as to the 
heavens, about the favor of which he ought already to 
have been sure, but as to there being spirits and regions, 
intermediate between earth and heaven. And with 
knowledge like this, and with even a suspicion of it, 
there are texts of Scripture, which deepen in meaning, 
as the eye regards them. 

The susceptibility of man as to the spiritual world, 
— this is .what Spiritualism would teach. At a re- 
ligious revival, the strange things, which sometimes ac- 
company conversion, are akin to the manner in which 
the prophets were affected ; and that this is so is a 
truth, made sure and evident to a Christian, by the 
psychical laws, which are involved in the phenomena of 
Spiritualism. It is an easy thing for a man to say that, 
as a Christian, he cares only about the temper of the 
New Testament, and to keep himself in it. But surely 
the Scriptures do not justify an expositor in that 
position. Signs and wonders, or rather the possibility 
and the way of them, are essential to the philosophy 
of revelation. Miracles may be no more, but at least 
they are a proclamation of the channel, and proofs as to 
an openness, by which revelation may be made. They 
may sometimes in the past have been false cries ; and 
just as a boy might alarm a neighborhood, so miracles, 
may have startled people in the past, and may again in 
the future, though starting, as the Scriptures have fore- 
warned, from where there is nothing good to follow, and 
sounding like " O earth, earth, earth, hear/' when really 
there is no word of the Lord to ensue. There is a chan- 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 219 

nel, by which human beings are open to the spiritual 
world, and to effects from it. To deny the worth of 
what comes through it may be sometimes right, and 
be sometimes, according to the Scriptures, even an im- 
perative duty ; but to doubt the reality of the channel 
itself may be a grievous mistake and be indeed what 
may vitiate a whole system of theology. 

But why should these spiritualistic phenomena be so 
much more abundant and familiar in this age than 
apparently at any former period ? Why are there so 
many more mediums to-day than were ever known be- 
fore ? It may be because of an occult something in 
the air ; or it may be because of something, by which 
the bodies or the souls of this generation are affected 
unconsciously, and perhaps only for a time, and in a 
manner which may be disease, or even perhaps im- 
provement. After having agonized in spirit, for some 
years, George Fox suddenly found himself living in 
light, and also preternaturally acquainted with the names 
and properties of all vegetables and minerals. Also he 
found that he had become a mouthpiece for the Spirit, 
and a man with attendance on whom people were con- 
vulsed in their bodies and quickened in their souls, and 
often also made into such channels of the Spirit as he 
himself was. And in the early days of the Shakers 
and the Irvingites there were many things which were 
curiously like the marvels which attended on George 
Fox. And indeed in history are many instances of 
movements which began from the spiritual world, and 
which yet were also characterized by the wisdom or 
ignorance or other peculiarities of the mortals through 
whom first the impulses were given. 



220 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

If certain psychical channels were a little enlarged 
with men generally, and yet not more than they have 
often been, men to-day would find themselves, as it 
were, staggering to and fro, under the bewildering 
intensity of influences, against the coming of which 
mere schooling in the order of nature would prove to 
have been no preparation whatever. And judging by 
the signs of the times, the guides of public opinion 
for keeping it both sober and enlightened will need to 
understand well the pneumatology of the Old Testa- 
ment, and the nature and reasons of the Jewish the- 
ocracy, and also the psychology involved in the New 
Testament, and the nature of the liberty, and there- 
by also of the responsibility, " wherewith Christ hath 
made us free." 

It is but walking in a vain show, when a man is 
thoughtless as to the spiritual world, to which already 
he belongs, and careless as to the channels by which 
he is himself approachable from it, and heedless as to 
its atmosphere, which yet he may sometimes be inhal- 
ing as breath, without knowing of it. 

According to the phenomena of Spiritualism, the 
constitution of human nature is manifestly still the 
same, as what the lawgiving of Moses presupposed, 
and as what the revelation of Jesus Christ was given 
to meet; and still the same as it was at Athens, 
Eome, and Antioch, when the gospel began its strug- 
gle with idolatry. And it is only with ascertaining 
the place where the first hearers of the gospel stood 
mentally, that one can catch with full force the words 
which were addressed to them. And anything to-day 
which might, more or less, enable a student to read the 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 221 

Epistles of Paul, in that state of mind about the uni- 
verse, which Paul addressed, would be or should be a 
great blessing. And the Christian expositor, who is 
regardless of the philosophy which attaches to the 
case of that " certain damsel who had a spirit of 
Pytho," and who was exorcised by St. Paul, would 
seem to be a little out of the light in which the Epis- 
tles of Paul ought to be read. 

But now a man may live a healthy life and a good 
life, while ignorant of geography, and of his relative 
position among a thousand million fellow-creatures on 
this earth, and while utterly ignorant even of the 
chemistry of his own bodily economy. And whatever 
may be our locality in the spiritual universe, and 
whether we suspect it or not ; and whatever may be 
the channels by which spiritually our lives are sus- 
tained; and whatever the mysteries of our spiritual 
constitution; and whatever also may be the gifts of 
the Spirit of which we may fail, from causes con- 
nected with our individual personalities, or with the era 
which we belong to, yet there is certain for us, under 
Christ, a more excellent way than any, which can be 
accidentally or blindly missed. "For now we see 
through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face : now I 
know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I 
am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, 
these three ; but the greatest of these is charity." 

But that charity — w T hat is it? It is not simply 
giving goods to feed the poor, nor is it even a man's 
willingness to let himself be burned alive. For it is 
what is more than that, being, as it is, what is of 
a man's inmost nature. Because it is that sympathy 



222 THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

which rejoices with them that do rejoice, and w T hich 
weeps with them that weep, which believes all things 
and hopes all things ; and which therefore is that at- 
tractiveness in a man's spirit, which silently and im- 
perceptibly procures for him more of the spiritual use 
of the universe than possibly his intellect could ever 
search out. 

Eeally to a true Christian, and still more to a Chris- 
tian as well instructed for his day as Moses was, when 
he " was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," 
the phenomena of Spiritualism may be interesting, but 
they ought not to be amazing. And it is just as far 
as a man denies their possibility, that he may measure 
his distance from the pneumatology of the Scriptures ; 
or, more precisely speaking, from that point where the 
apostles would have had him sit down as a heathen 
learner, and sit long as a Christian hearer, before they 
would have had him stand up as a teacher. There are 
many persons who by birth and happy education are 
such, that the actualities of Spiritualism have nothing 
to show them except what they may well believe, on a 
mere hint almost. But then of these born priests of 
the church there is never one — blessed man — that 
" sitteth in the seat of the scornful." Alas ! in unset- 
tled, discordant times, like the present, how la,rge a 
part of our best learning is simply getting to unlearn ! 
And in regard to bad habits to be broken, when life 
becomes earnest, how much caution there has got to 
be about that seat of the scorner ! So often the foun- 
tain-head of wisdom in a man is choked by notions 
originating with people wise in their own conceit, or 
perhaps with blameless men helplessly bewildered in 



THOUGHTS ON SPIRITUALISM. 223 

intricacies of thought ! But when wisdom is not to 
be got from the outside Avorld, there is still a way- 
through which it is to be gained by simplicity and 
faith. "I said, Days should speak," — but then so 
often they do not ! " I said, Days should speak, and 
multitude of years should teach wisdom. But there 
is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty 
giveth them understanding." 



A MIEACLE DEFINED. 

WHAT is a miracle ? It is a fearful question to 
start in a theological library. For at once that 
library becomes a Babel of angry disputants, scarcely 
one of whom can understand another or would even 
wish to. A miracle has been defined in one way, and 
another way, and in so many ways, that almost, as a 
word, it has become meaningless. It is plain, that 
commonly Protestants in defining a miracle, have been 
actuated by anti-Catholic prejudice, and not simply by 
that spirit of truth, which would guide into all truth. 
And this remark is true even of some Protestants, 
who, for purity of character, might very properly, as 
Catholics even, have been sainted. And indeed, al- 
ways, more or less of allowance will have to be made 
for a writer, as long as he is connected with books, 
and breathes vital air, and is capable of being provoked 
by his fellow-creatures. 

As to their reality, miracles may be tested by their 
usefulness as to the gospel : miracles are credible, as 
good evidence, if accompanied by inspiration : miracles 
not directly connected with doctrine are not worth 
thinking of: miracles are of use in founding a faith, 
but not in preserving it, and therefore can never have 
happened since the earliest days of Christianity: 
miracles were acts, by which the laws of nature were 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 225 

suspended, and which acts are made certain through 
history, because of considerations which are acquiesced 
in by learned and honorable men. 

But now all these definitions of the miraculous 
were made with a view to the claims, controversially, 
of the Catholic Church. Catholicism, throughout the 
wide regions which it covers, appropriates every marvel 
to itself, and knows how to use itself skilfully. An 
ecstatic, the report of an apparition, a wond.erful 
dream, healing in the manner which is now called 
mesmeric, — all such marvels as these the Catholic 
Church can argue from, in one way or another. " See 
the marvels which are among us every day, some- 
where or other. See how these things are a continua- 
tion of the miraculous powers, which witness our 
special descent from the apostles. Or else, see how 
they happen in attestation of our doctrines as to the 
spiritual world." 

To all this, practically, Protestants have said : " We 
cannot look, and we will not look. We should be 
silly to look at what is impossible. But we will de- 
fine against you." And so a late English Dean, while 
attempting to define a miracle, was evidently conscious 
of his scarlet hood, and of the front which it was de- 
sirable to show against the Papists, — mild, firm, and 
justly dogmatic. And in his definition of the miracu- 
lous, the Protestant minister of Paris evidently had 
in view things among Catholics, the reality of which 
as facts he was not willing to challenge, but the co- 
gency of which as marvels it was his object to fore- 
stall. Miracles are to be tested by their necessity to 
the gospel, — but this leaves it .uncertain what the 
10* o 



226 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

gospel may be, and what necessity may be ; and as 
coming from Bishop Warburton, it leaves it uncertain 
also whether those divines of his age might not by 
him have been accounted right, w^ho argued that mira- 
cles ceased in the Church, with the political establish- 
ment of Christianity by Constantine; and in whose 
minds, therefore, Christianity was a gospel, which could 
spare " the manifestation of the Spirit " as soon as it 
became strong in armies, old temples, and money. 
And there is the Scotch bishop, Douglass, who in his 
time and place defined a miracle as being credible, 
if accompanied by inspiration. That definition may 
have seemed good to some people at a particular time : 
but to-day it appears as though it would say that a 
miracle by itself is impossible, but that a miracle con- 
joined with a mystery is fairly credible. 

At one time a miracle was defined as against the 
doctrinal claims of the Catholics, and at another time 
as against the Catholics and Gibbon, and with an eye 
also to Hume. And to-day the acute Protestant 
theologian, who fancies that the Church is a fortress 
of which he is a defender, would wish to define a 
miracle so as to stop off Catholics, Spiritualists, and 
anti-supernaturalists. 

And now for intelligent, discriminating, earnest per- 
sons, what is the outcome of all the controversies of 
the last hundred years, as to miracles ? It is simply, 
at the best, the hope that none of the parties con- 
cerned may have known what they were talking 
about ; as so few out of the number of mutually con- 
tradictory opponents can possibly have been right, 
even if any were. And thus in these latter times, on 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 227 

the subject of miracles, it would seem as though 
something had been happening like what Paul was 
thinking of, when he wrote of how "the world by 
wisdom knew not God," or like the nullifying effect 
of that inappropriate learning with which Jesus re- 
proached the Jews, — " Thus have ye made the com- 
mandment of God of none effect by your tradition." 

Thoroughly persuaded as to the supernatural, and 
speaking to people who no more doubted about it 
than he himself did, Luther, in his fearless, unguarded 
way, once spoke of miracles as playthings, which the 
Father Almighty in heaven let fall among his chil- 
dren on earth ; and Jerome Huss also expressed him- 
self as to miracles in the same way. And they both 
of them did well enough, thinking, no doubt, while 
they were speaking, of the priesthood of their time; 
which commonly was eager to magnify every little 
marvel of the day or neighborhood, for purposes more 
exactly ecclesiastical than religious. 

In the common version of the Scriptures, the word 
" miracle" occurs in all the Old Testament but five 
times ; and in the Gospel of Matthew, not once ; in 
that of Luke, but once only; and in the Gospel of 
Mark, but twice. And of those instances in Mark, 
one use of the word " miracle " is in a passage, where 
nothing like the word was written by St. Mark, in 
Greek ; and the other is in a text, where more prop- 
erly it might be translated as meaning " power " or " en- 
abling faculty." But in the Gospel of John, the word 
" miracle " occurs eleven times. How then is this ? 
It is because the word which is commonly translated 
" miracle " means really " a sign." In the three first 



228 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

Gospels, it is always so translated, except on three oc- 
casions ; in two of which the original Greek is not 
concerned, and in the third of which, it is the same 
word which otherwise is always translated as meaning 
" a sign." But now, why is there this difference in the 
rendering of a common and important word from the 
Greek into English ? It is, no doubt, because the 
Commissioners for translating the Scriptures, under 
the authority of King James the First, of England, at 
their separate pieces of work, translated the same 
Greek term, some of them by one word, and others of 
them by another. 

What a relief it seems to be to learn this ! For, 
about* that word " miracle," there has gathered such a 
darkening of " counsel by words without knowledge " ! 
To theological students the word is like a football, 
kicked and indented on the field of controversy, 
amidst the shouts and passions of opposing parties, 
age after age, till for any exact use it has been kicked 
out of all shape. 

Sometimes in the New Testament " signs and won- 
ders " are mentioned, but this phrase means simply 
" wonderful signs." Sometimes things of a miraculous 
character are called in the Greek, and are translated 
into English, as merely " works." But the original 
Greek word, whether any dictionary knows it or not, 
means a peculiar kind of works, with a mighty spirit 
in them ; as is evident by the use of the word among 
the Neo-Platonists. 

About things called miracles, then, the general mean- 
ing of the phraseology employed is that of signifi- 
cance. Miracles are signs ; or rather " signs " really 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 229 

and exactly are those things, which are commonly 
called miracles. Indeed, the word " miracle " has been 
so miserably abused by controversialists, that it would 
be well if it could be disused for fifty years, and some 
synonyme be employed in its stead. But as that thing 
cannot be, then always let it be remembered that in 
the Scriptures by " miracles " are meant " signs," or 
manifestations of power originating outside of the 
sphere of nature. 

Of all the passages in the Bible, which implicate 
the subject of miracles, it is of course impossible, 
here, to enter into an examination. But there are cer- 
tain distinct, grand, overruling enunciations as to mira- 
cles, to which all other texts must be regarded as sub- 
servient, for reasons as to incidental utterance or local 
connection. And perhaps there is no honest theolo- 
gian but would acknowledge in a moment, that there 
are no texts in the Scriptures but actually are congru- 
ent with these great direct statements. According to 
the Gospel of John, Jesus said : " Believe me, that 
I am in the Father, and the Father in me ; or else 
believe me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works 
that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than 
these shall he do : because I go unto my Father." In 
this passage are foretold the powers with which the 
disciples might find themselves invested. And in the 
following passage from the Gospel of Matthew, it is 
foretold that miracles may not only be signs of the 
coming of the kingdom of heaven, but may also herald 
a movement from the side of the Prince of Darkness. 
" For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, 



230 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

and shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch 
that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very 
elect. Behold I have told you before." Also St. Paul 
foreshowed to the Thessalonians the working of a mys- 
tery of iniquity, through which he would be revealed, 
" whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all 
power and signs and lying wonders." Through the 
Apocalypse, St. John foresaw the struggle between the 
gospel and hell, typified in various ways. " And every 
creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under 
the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are 
in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, 
and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four 
beasts said Amen. And the four and twenty elders 
fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and 
ever." But John saw also something else, as he stood 
upon the sand of the sea, and beheld a beast come up 
out of the earth. " And he doeth great wonders, so 
that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the 
earth, in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that 
dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles 
which he had power to do, in the sight of the beast." 
The early Christians then expected miracles from more 
quarters than one, and from elsewhere than heaven ; 
and they were prepared for the coming of false proph- 
ets as well as true. 

In the Gospel of Mark it is promised, " These signs 
shall follow them that believe ; in my name shall they 
cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; 
they shall take up serpents ; and if they drink any 
deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 231 

hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Signs 
were to follow them that believed ; and also were to 
be looked for from persons who were worse than unbe- 
lievers. For still as written in the Gospel of Mark, 
and still also as the words of Jesus himself, it was 
foretold that " false Christs and false prophets shall 
rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if 
it were possible, even the elect." 

That through miracles there is a manifestation of 
the Spirit St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians. And to 
the Thessalonians he wrote, that power and signs 
would some time be, from the working of Satan. 

A miracle is a seal beyond a counterfeit, which God 
sets to his word when he speaks. This is a statement 
which has been agreed to by theologians of all degrees, 
by bishops and priests and ministers and laymen, but 
never by either fact or the Scriptures. The voice of 
the Scriptures, indeed, on the subject enunciates dis- 
tinctly its meaning through the texts just cited, which 
are direct, emphatic, and overruling. 

The field of the miraculous is wider and more mys- 
terious, than might seem to be supposed by some 
people, and even by many divines. According to the 
Scriptures, miracles, and of more kinds than one, ap- 
parently, a man might work, and yet be no Christian. 
And, as it would seem, a man might even work mira- 
cles in the name of Christ, and possibly by even the 
virtue of that name, and yet truly himself not be a 
Christian. " Many will say to me in that day, Lord, 
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name ? and in 
thy name have cast out devils ? and in thy name done 
many wonderful works ? And then will I profess unto 



232 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

them, I never knew you : depart from me, ye that 
work iniquity." That is a warning for persons about 
themselves, as channels for the miraculous. And now 
let a caution be considered, as to the origin and laws 
of marvellous manifestations. Because there were go- 
ing about many false prophets, that is, many persons 
who were liable to be inspired by bad spirits, St, John, 
in his first Epistle, gives what would be a test, for 
at least the people individually to whom he wrote. 
" Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits 
whether they are of God ; because many false prophets 
are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the 
Spirit of God : every spirit that confesseth that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh is of God ; and every spirit 
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the 
flesh is not of God." 

And now let it be understood that, no doubt, these 
false prophets appeared among the Christians as they 
assembled themselves together, and, so to say, in 
Church. And as to the opening which was possible 
for them, let the fourteenth chapter be considered 
in the first Epistle to the Corinthians. In that 
chapter is indicated remarkably the attitude which 
Christianity would have its disciples assume towards 
spirits who might wish to inspire any of them, and, 
therefore, also towards the prophets themselves, as to 
what they might have to say on the prompting or in- 
spiration of those spirits. " The spirits of the prophets 
are subject to the prophets." The prophets are to ex- 
ercise their own discretion, as to time at least, towards 
the spirits, who would wish to make them speak. 
And with this monition of St. Paul agrees curiously 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. * 233 

and wonderfully that advice by St. John : " Beloved, 
believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether 
they are of God." 

By the foregoing texts, lines are marked on a field 
of thought, in which possibly some persons may feel 
as though they could only move blindly. And yet some 
time, perhaps, it may be to them like a familiar re- 
gion; after they have been, as St. Paul would say, 
renewed in the spirit of their minds by, it may be, a 
new philosophy which they may have taken to, or by 
internal processes in the spirit which they may have 
experienced ; and as to which, perhaps, there is noth- 
ing to be suggested more distinctly than what is to be 
read in the book of Job : " For God speaketh once, yea 
twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a 
vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, 
in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the 
ears of men, and sealeth their instruction." 

And truly the world intellectual and spiritual must 
be alive with laws, powers, and agencies, in a thousand 
ways, as to which we mortals can know nothing what- 
ever, but of which for importance and nearness we 
may conjecture something, from the manner in which 
the outer material world has revealed itself to eyes, 
fitted with telescope and microscope. In the fourteenth 
chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians there is a 
glimpse of wdiat the souls of men are capable of mani- 
festing as to prophecy, and as to the discovery of the 
secrets of the heart, and as to speech in unknown 
tongues of men and, it may be, of angels. But it was 
the doctrine of Paul, that than all such marvels as 
these, charity is far better evidence as to the opera- 



234 • A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

tion of the Spirit. By these remarks there is implied 
another spiritual world, than what some theologians 
suppose; but it is not, therefore, the less certain or 
Scriptural. 

And now again, what is a miracle ? Of all the 
words then in the Scriptures, so translated, and guided 
also by the connections in which the words are used, 
the general sense of " miracle " would seem to be " a 
sign." And a sign would seem to be of various de- 
grees and even varieties of significance, and even per- 
haps to be more or less contingent on human or earthly 
conditions. That wonderful scene of the Transfigura- 
tion was not for all Jerusalem, nor even for all the 
twelve apostles. But it is written : " Jesus taketh 
Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them 
up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured 
before them ; and his face did shine as the sun, and 
his raiment was white as the light, and behold, there 
appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with 
him." But in his own country, where people asked 
in reference to his miraculous power, as to how it 
was, and why it could be, and whether he was not the 
carpenter ? " Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not 
without honor, but in his own country, and among his 
own kin, and in his own house. And he could there 
do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon 
a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled 
because of their unbelief." 

Of there having been a varying estimate as to 
miracles, among the multitude at least, this text 
would seem to show, " And many of the people be- 
lieved on him and said, When Christ cometh, will he 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 235 

do more miracles than these which this man hatli 
done?" And that ultimately miracles, as to signifi- 
cance, have to be understood by doctrine, that is, 
through the human reason quickened and enlightened 
by the Holy Spirit, is evident even from the position 
which Jesus Christ assumed in argument. " Then was 
brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind 
and dumb ; and he healed him, insomuch that the 
blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the 
people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of 
David ? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, 
This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, 
the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their 
thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided 
against itself is brought to desolation ; and every city 
or house divided against itself shall not stand : and 
if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: 
how shall then his kingdom stand ? " 

And so, there is recorded another argument by Jesus, 
made apparently with reference to what he was him- 
self, and as to what the world about him was, with his 
being in it, and its being thereby alive with miraculous 
possibilities : " Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face 
of the sky and of the earth ; but how is it that ye do 
not discern this time ? Yea, and why even of your- 
selves judge ye not what is right ? " And for the 
estimate of miracles as connected with the apostles, it 
would seem as though these words might be fully ap- 
plicable, as implying that the miracles of the apostles 
were like those of Jesus as to significance : " The disci- 
ple is not above his master, nor the servant above his 
lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his 



236 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

master, and the servant as his lord. If they have 
called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much 
more shall they call them of his household ? " 

As to the significance by authority, which miracles 
claim in the New Testament, perhaps the preceding 
texts are sufficient. And as to the authority of mira- 
cles in the Old Testament, perhaps Maimonides, the 
Eabbi, may be a good teacher; and what he says 
agrees altogether with the Gospels, and with the doc- 
trine of St. Paul. " We do not believe every one who 
works a sign or a wonder to be a prophet, but only the 
man whom we have known from the beginning to be fit 
for prophecy, — to have raised himself, by his wisdom 
and his works, above all the men of his age, and to 
have walked in holiness and separation. Afterwards, 
if he come and do a sign or a wonder, and say that 
God hath sent him, the command is to hear him, as it 
is said, ' Unto him shall ye hearken/ " 

The general sense, then, of the word " miracle " in 
the Bible is " a sign " ; as in Exodus, where it is said 
to Moses by the Lord, " And it shall come to pass, if 
they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice 
of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of 
the latter sign " ; and as in the account of the expul- 
sion of the traders from the court of the temple, 
when " answered the Jews and said unto him, What 
sign showest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these 
things ? " and as on other occasion, when " certain of 
the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, 
Master, we would see a sign from thee.' , 

The word " sign " is a general word, though more 
precise than the word " miracle." For a sign of mi- 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 237 

raculous origin means at least something of an un- 
earthly origin, intended for the notice of earthly peo- 
ple. There is, however, no word in the Bible which 
distinguishes as to the marvellous, between what might 
herald an angel, or such a startle as might be given by 
Satan, or by any one of those spirits or agencies, for 
which in the aggregate, perhaps, the word " Satan " is 
a synonyme in the Scriptures. In the Apocalypse were 
foreseen " the spirits of demons working miracles.'' 
But the word which is here translated as " miracle " is 
the same word " sign " which was used by Jesus when 
he said, " The powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; 
and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in 
heaven." And according to the prediction of Jesus, 
" signs " were to attend upon those who believed in 
him, and also " signs " were to be shown by false 
Christs and false prophets. 

And now let us notice the tone, simply, in which 
miracles or signs are spoken of, and we shall feel 
perhaps that miracles, or signs and wonders, are signs 
simply, and not absolute proofs. In the Gospel of 
Matthew it is written, " Then certain of the scribes and 
of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would 
see a sign from thee. But he answ r ered, and said unto 
them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after 
a sign ; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the 
sign of the prophet Jonas." And so by implication, 
at least, and actually by the philosophy of the Scrip- 
tures as to miracles, the argument of Jesus is, that 
miracles were not for them — Scribes and Pharisees 
— because of their souls having been averse to his 
preaching. " The men of Nineveh shall rise in judg- 



238 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

ment with this generation, and shall condemn it : be- 
cause they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and 
behold a greater than Jonas is here." 

In the minds of the Pharisees, the cure of the man 
born blind scarcely counterbalanced by its miraculous- 
ness the prejudice which was created by its having 
been wrought on the Sabbath. " They brought to the 
Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it 
was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and 
opened his eyes. Then again also the Pharisees asked 
him how he had received his sight. He said unto 
them, He put clay upon mine eyes; and I washed 
and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, 
This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the 
Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a 
sinner do such miracles ? And there was a division 
among them." According to some theologians, every 
miracle is the direct act of the Most High God. And 
thus a miracle to-day should be like the sound of a 
trumpet, in advance of legions of angels and of heav- 
enly hosts, and of power almighty. But it was not so 
tljat miracles were regarded at Jerusalem, by the chief 
people. After Lazarus had been raised from the dead, 
" Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and 
had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on 
him. But some of them went their way to the Phari- 
sees, and told them what things Jesus had done. Then 
gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, 
and said, What do we ? for this man doeth many mir- 
acles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe 
on him ; and the Eomans shall come and take away 
both our place and nation." 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 239 

To the apostles Jesus said, " Believe me that I am in 
the Father, and the Father in me ; or else believe me 
for the very works' sake." This was as though his own 
sweet words should have been more persuasive than 
miracles. In his own country, "When the Sabbath 
day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue : 
and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From 
whence hath this man these things ? and what wisdom 
is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty 
works are wrought by his hajids ? " The mighty works, 
however, even though thoroughly credited, were not 
supposed to be for significance, what should have 
stopped the rudeness of the further questioning, "Is 
not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of 
James and John, and of Juda, and of Simon ? and are 
not his sisters here with us ? And they were offended 
at him." 

By contrast with the preceding occurs to the mind 
the account of the poor woman, who said, " If I may 
touch but his clothes I shall be whole." From her 
case there is a little more to be learned as to miracles. 
" She felt in her body that she was healed of that 
plague " ; and she was cured as to her body through 
her soul, or rather through that state of her soul which 
was like a sensation of Christ, as " she touched his gar- 
ment." After this, " the woman fearing and trembling, 
knowing what was done in her, came and fell down be- 
fore him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto 
her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole ; go in 
peace, and be whole of thy plague." At Capernaum, 
when the heathen centurion told his tale ; and " when 
Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that fol- 



240 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

lowed, Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great 
faith, no, not in Israel." And then, as showing that the 
spiritual state of the " man under authority " was con- 
senting to the miracle or concerned with it, " Jesus 
said unto the centurion, G-o thy way; and as thou hast 
believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant 
was healed in the selfsame hour.' , 

Of the soul there is a state or an attitude, by which 
it is " right before God." It does not follow, however, 
even under Christ, that every spirit right before God 
should be a channel of miracles, whether few or many. 
For, all the conditions concerned with miracles are not 
known. As a right state of the body is favorable to 
right thinking, so there may be some nervous condition 
or magnetic peculiarity, which may favor the soul's 
expression of itself by miracles. And with the free 
manifestation of miracles, it would seem as though 
not only the spiritual state of individuals might be 
concerned, but also the state of the community of 
which they may be members. 

Also, religiously all times are not the same. One age 
is a time of fervor and trust, wherein man can walk 
with God gladly and joyously, though clouds and dark- 
ness be about him. Another age is a season of intel- 
lectual curiosity, when men fancy that they can " by 
searching find out God " and that indeed they ought 
to learn about him before trusting to him. But really 
that picture of the Transfiguration by Eaphael, at Eome, 
has never been seen through a microscope, and never 
will be, even though every bit of the canvas should be 
passed across the field of the best possible instrument. 
A believer can walk with God in spirit, but not the 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 241 

man who thinks that before starting he ought to find out 
God by analysis and logic, even though not unto perfec- 
tion. And in many other ways, too, may men disqual- 
ify themselves spiritually for things which they would 
attempt. Often in the chambers of his soul a man will 
deliberately close the skylights and the higher windows, 
and try to see only by such light as is nearest to the 
basement ; and he thinks, in so doing, that he is keep- 
ing close to nature. But he makes the same blunder 
as that which would search out the beauty and mean- 
ing of Eaphael's great picture with a microscope. 
Dogs are excellent within the range of their faculties, 
— the mastiff, the setter, the Newfoundland ; but as 
something to be judged upon, " Give not that which is 
holy unto the dogs." 

And not only can a man not judge who is no judge ; 
but under no outpouring, whether Pentecostal or any 
other, can a man receive who has no receptiveness. 
The Pharisees and Sadducees were not often the peo- 
ple, through whom there was any manifestation of the 
Spirit. In the time of Jesus it does not appear that 
ever a Pharisee was healed ; or that there was a Phari- 
see among the seventy sent out by Christ, who found 
themselves endowed with miraculous power. And 
commonly the Pharisees would seem to have been 
spiteful about the miracles, even when they could not 
but acknowledge them, as being real. The seventy 
had returned with joy at the effect of their new pow- 
ers in the places where they had been, saying, " Lord, 
even the devils are subject unto us through thy name." 
At this, and thereby also at the state of mind which 
had been thus found existing abroad, " Jesus rejoiced 
11 p 



242 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

in spirit, and said, I thank thee, Father, Lord of 
heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
babes : even so, Father ; for so it seemed good in thy 
sight." 

It has been quoted already, but it is of that signifi- 
cance that it may well be cited again, that when Jesus 
was in his own country, " he could there do no mighty 
work," but only heal a few people, by laying his hands 
on them. There was then possible a state of feeling 
in a place, at a certain time, which could hinder the 
working of miracles even by Jesus Christ. 

And as what may result from spiritual recognition 
between persons, and from trust and faith, the miracle 
at Lystra is an instance ; at which city there was a 
poor sufferer, who happened to be within the reach 
of Paul's voice' as he preached. "The same heard 
Paul speak : who steadfastly beholding him, and per- 
ceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud 
voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and 
walked." By this it would seem to be implied that 
for miracles in curing there was necessary, not only a 
power ready to heal, but also a state of expectancy, 
receptiveness, and faith on the side of the sufferers. 

" Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you," 
says St. James in his Epistle ; and if there be an age, 
by the spirit of which men generally are withdrawn 
from God, then necessarily the manifestations of the 
Spirit must become very few, and be what can be 
credited very faintly by most persons. And this must 
be, notwithstanding what concurrently may be the ex- 
periences of individual Christians, who perhaps may be 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 243 

peculiar as to constitution, or happy in some way, as to 
education, associates, or neighborhood. 

From Jesus, after he had risen, and before he had 
ascended, the apostles received as an answer to a ques- 
tion, " It is not for you to know the times or the sea- 
sons, which the Father hath put in his own power." 
And that there is a varying distance, in some sense, 
between mortals and their God, is implied in the 
words of Peter, in his address at the temple, in Solo- 
mon's porch, when he said to the people who had come 
running together on account of a miracle, " Eepent ye 
therefore and be converted, that your sins may be 
blotted out," against what is in the future, " when the 
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of 
the Lord." 

And as showing the manner in which the human 
spirit may be in connection with powers outside of 
itself indeed, and which yet are not foreign to its na- 
ture, let the words of Jesus, spoken to his immediate 
disciples, be noticed ; for though they were not ful- 
filled in the age when they were uttered, and are not 
likely to be at this present time, yet they hold good 
for all who are, or who ever shall be in him, " that is 
true, even in his son Jesus Christ." It is the philoso- 
phy of faith, which is stated in this merely occasional 
remark, " Verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a 
grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this moun- 
tain, Remove hence to yonder place ; and it shall re- 
move ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." 

And now what is faith ? It is the confidence of 
moral persuasion, — it is the sense of what must be, 
because of what ought to be : it is the state of a soul 



244 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

which is open towards God, and therefore receptive of 
the Holy Ghost ; and which thereby also is capable of 
becoming prophetic, and of blossoming with Christian 
graces, like gifts, and of developing latent powers, in a 
superhuman way, for teaching and healing, and for 
spiritual perception, and communion. Faith is the 
instinct of a soul, as to its affinities ; and about which, 
as to reliability, the blind life of a bee in the hive 
ought to be hint enough. 

There is an instinct of faith in us, or a something, 
which for want of words, cannot perhaps be better de- 
fined, but which men are free to trust or not, because 
of the manner in which they are created to live, or are 
let live, or at least are free to feel. 

" Faith as a grain of mustard-seed ! " There is a 
whole volume of spiritual philosophy in these words, 
though only dimly discernible by the writer hereof, and 
perhaps by most other persons, at present. In a para- 
ble Jesus spoke of " a grain of mustard-seed, which, 
when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds 
that be in the earth ; but when it is sown, it groweth 
up and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth 
out great branches ; so that the fowls of the air may 
lodge under the shadow of it." And just as in a mus- 
tard-seed there is the possibility of a tree, so in every 
man of faith there is what might remove mountains, not 
perhaps any day in any century, but in Pentecostal 
.times. That our souls begin from God, and live by 
him, is Christian doctrine ; and it was the belief of the 
best of the heathen, as St. Paul showed to the men of 
Athens, when he reminded them of the words of one 
of their poets, " For we are also his offspring." And 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 245 

if only by faith our souls were as natural as mustard- 
seeds, or as pliant to super-agency, they would have 
their various faculties supplied and filled from a foun- 
tain-head eternal of wisdom, power, and goodness, and 
have all such desires, as faithful souls can have, easily 
and abundantly satisfied. 

And now again what is a miracle for us human be- 
ings, according to the Scriptures ? But as preliminary 
to the answer, let it be remembered that our souls and 
all souls are living in God, as indeed, in some way, all 
things must be ; and not merely such intelligences as 
Moses and Socrates w r ere, but also bees busy in the 
hive, and devils even while they believe and tremble. 

According to the Scriptures, then, miracles are 
" signs " of activity in a moulding and pervading world 
of spirit ; and which were appealed to, by the Jews, as 
proofs sometimes of greater and sometimes of less sig- 
nificance, in connection with the persons through whom 
they were wrought. Also, concurrently with the fore- 
going statement, and as enlarging it, it is to be remem- 
bered, according to the Scriptures, through the world 
of spirit which is round us, that demons, like any 
other spirits, may possibly make " signs," and may try 
even to be taken for angels of light. 

And thus, according to a Pindaric phrase, by many 
windings of thought, or as Swedenborg might say, by 
a spiral progress, we have arrived at a point, perhaps a 
little higher on the scale of information, but still with 
the same view, whence Ealph Cudworth looked out, as 
a student of the Intellectual System of the Universe, 
when he wrote, after citing Pagan as well as Christian 
miracles and prophecies, " All these phenomena of 



246 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

apparitions, witchcraft, possessions, and prophecies, do 
evince that spirits, angels, or demons, though invisible 
to us, are no fancies, but real and substantial inhabi- 
tants of the world ; which favors not the atheistic hy- 
pothesis : but some of them, as the higher kinds of 
miracles and predictions, do also immediately enforce 
the acknowledgment of a Deity, a Being superior to 
nature, which therefore can check and control it, and 
which, comprehending the whole, foreknows the most 
remote, distant, and contingent event.' ' Also, though it 
be the same thing in other words, it is yet worthy of 
being read again, " Though all miracles, promiscuously, 
do not immediately prove the existence of God, nor 
confirm a prophet, or whatsoever doctrine ; yet do all 
of them evince that there is a rank of invisible, under- 
standing beings, superior to men, which atheists com- 
monly deny." 

Those last words as to an atheist remind one of a 
fact, which by a late writer was stated very vividly, 
that in modern times there has nothing been debated 
or proposed in the realms of thought or imagination, 
as to theology, or metaphysics, or social organization, 
but was agitated in England during the times of the 
Commonwealth. And from that furnace-like condi- 
tion, in which mind once was in England, no doubt 
there has resulted in its inhabitants that something, 
which is a part, at least, of what by foreigners is 
sometimes called sobriety, and sometimes slowness of 
thought. 

Ealph Cudworth, Eichard Baxter, John Owen, Hen- 
ry More, John Smith and their compeers, may be sup- 
posed by some critics to be out of date for citation as 



A MIRACLE DEFINED. 247 

authorities on philosophical or religious subjects, as 
having been persons innocent of a thought of Panthe- 
ism, and too simple and professional, ever to .have 
known what hostile scepticism might have had to say 
for itself, in their time. But than this there is not a 
greater mistake to be made in literature by anybody. 
For the foregoing are all men of great names ; and the 
age in which they lived was not a time for cheap repu- 
tations. And, indeed, for spiritual insight and learn- 
ing, and for experience from a wide knowledge of men 
and collision with them, there are no twelve men, to- 
day, to be found in all England, or throughout the 
United States, who could be fairly compared as a jury 
on a theological question, with such men as were 
known to Henry More and Eichard Baxter. And 
truly, at this time, the direct affinities of the best 
thinkers are with the scholars of two hundred years 
ago, rather than with those who wrote English under 
Queen Anne, or who loved to be Addisonian while 
George the Third was king. By searching upwards 
and around with the telescope, and downwards with 
the microscope, into the magnitudes and affinities 
which are latent in every atom, science confirms the 
doctrine of the Unity of God. But that doctrine had 
been a primary truth of revelation for thousands of 
years before those optical helps were invented. And, 
indeed, beyond its assent as to the doctrine of the 
Unity of the Godhead, and those illustrations which 
it furnishes of truths which are at least as old as the 
Old Testament, science has yielded nothing new what- 
ever for the uses or the consideration of theology. 
With the discovery of the law of gravitation Newton 
did not find himself changed theologically ; and to the 



248 A MIRACLE DEFINED. 

end of his life he believed profoundly in a world ex- 
tra-human and spiritual, and in prophecy, as an effect 
from it. 

And now, after having striven to view this subject 
of miracles, as it exists in the Scriptures, by light 
from every quarter which is open towards him, the 
present writer would suggest the following proposi- 
tions. 

I. A miracle is a " sign " that men are vitally con- 
nected with a sphere, which is wider than what is 
commonly called " nature," and which transcends it. 

II. A miracle is a "sign" as to individuals and 
sometimes as to communities, of an increase in sensi- 
bility as to influence from the spiritual world. 

III. A miracle is a "sign" that in the persons 
through whom it is wrought, there is a state of open- 
ness towards the spiritual world, through which, more 
or less effectually, they may be receptive of spiritual 
suggestions, prophetic and doctrinal: which sugges- 
tions, however, like the miracle itself, may possibly be 
not from above. 

IV. A miracle of magnitude and beneficence would 
seem to create a high presumption, and to be a " sign " 
as to the goodness, and therefore as to the reliability 
of the person through whom it is wrought. 

V. A miracle or sign is a possibility of the present 
day, and from quarters both good and bad. 

VI. As to the significance of miracles, or as to signs 
given or coming from the spiritual world, men ordina- 
rily may judge of themselves, and always they may 
learn from the Holy Spirit ; the monitions of which will 
never fail, while there are two or three disciples to 
gather together truly, in the name of Jesus Christ. 



MIEACLES AS SIGNS. 



BY anti-supernaturalists it is an argument against 
the probability of miracles ever having happened, 
that the force of them as to authority, and therefore also 
as to credibility, must depend on the mental state of the 
person witnessing them, or hearing of them. But this 
is no new discovery ; for it is implied in the Scriptures 
continually. And St. Paul, in his First Epistle to the 
Corinthians, discriminates thus as to miracles which 
might even happen together in the church, " Tongues 
are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them 
that believe not : but prophesying serveth not for them 
that believe not, but for them w^hich believe." And 
in the first chapter of the same epistle, St. Paul would 
say that there are conditions as to preaching Christ, 
under which " signs " are not thought of, and wisdom 
of the Greek kind is not minded, " For after that in 
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not 
God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to 
save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, 
and the Greeks seek after wisdom : but we preach 
Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and 
unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are 
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of 
God, and the wisdom of God." 

Miracles dependent for their meaning on the persons 
11* 



250 MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 

attending to theiln, — of course they must be, and 
always have been. For, outside of what is mathemati- 
cal, hardly anything can be uttered but varies as to 
force, with the various minds which receive it, and es- 
pecially on such subjects as are moral and religious. 

It has been said, as though by the complaisance of 
lofty intellects, and as though by concession to the 
ways of Providence, that a belief in miracles may have 
had its use in times of darkness, and so may have 
served a good end, though itself being utterly baseless. 
But a sentiment like that, instead of being welcomed, 
is eschewed by anything like "the truth as it is in 
Jesus," and by every honest atom in the universe. 

It is true that a miracle may be more striking one 
day than another, and in one age than another, just as 
it might be with one person more than with another. 
But what of that ? From even the same occurrence 
do all the spectators receive uniformly the same im- 
pression ? What sermon ever was exactly the same 
thing, to even only two persons in a congregation ? A 
miracle might be seen and acknowledged by twenty 
witnesses ; and some of them would thank God for " a 
sign and wonder " ; and some others would say that it 
was very curious, and worth thinking about : while still 
more, by their utilitarian remarks, would show them- 
selves to be of the same mind with the people, whom 
Jesus once answered, when he said, " Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, ye seek me, not because ye saw the mir- 
acles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were 
filled." 

Never were miracles understood in the Catholic 
Church, as being of the same significance as in the 




MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 

Evidences of Eeligion, by Joseph Priestley. And 
before Moses addressed Pharoah, it was anticipated 
that among the Egyptians one sign might be more co- 
gent than another, and two signs be more persuasive 
than one. " And it shall come to pass, if they will 
not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the 
first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter 
sign." Is a miracle, then, really the less probable as 
an occurrence, or is its significance the less certain be- 
cause the minds of men, as to the " sign and wonder " 
may not be uniform, age after age ? 

It has been said that the day for miracles is past, and 
that whatever use there may have been in them is worn 
out. This, however, is the word of a writer who ac- 
tually never knew what a miracle was, and who there- 
fore could never have known properly about its signifi- 
cance and use. For really and truly, there never was 
a time when a miracle was as much itself, as it is to- 
day. There never has been a period w T hen a miracle 
could have been as suggestive and as instructive as it 
might be at present. There never has been an age 
when a miracle could have meant as much as it does 
at this moment. And never, in all time past, could a 
miracle have been as much of " a sign and wonder " as 
it might be, and should be, at this present time. For, 
as is coitimonly and scientifically supposed, the Order 
of Nature is clearly and distinctly against anything 
like a miracle ; and those powers of omnipotence and 
omniscience, by which the realm of nature is pervaded, 
are rightly regarded as guaranties against the possibil- 
ity of a miracle by accident. And so, in these en- 
lightened days, the humblest miracle, or work, or sign, 



252 MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 

on which formerly only a minor stress would have 
been laid, is arrayed in a portentousness of meaning, 
with which anciently it was never accredited, even by 
those who most heartily believed it. And thus, like a 
remark which has been already made, for such spiritual 
discernment, as most persons have at present, or are 
likely to have before they die, " the unclean spirit," so 
often mentioned in' the Bible, would, as to % the consti- 
tution of the spiritual universe, be as great a sign as 
they are capable of receiving. And yet from the 
Spirit of God an abundance of other " signs " are wait- 
ing on us all. But as to these invisible signs we ex- 
perience nothing, and can scarcely even think or feel 
anything, because of our living, for some reason, in a 
state as to the miraculous, somewhat like that of those 
Jews to whom Jesus said, " Perceive ye not yet, neither 
understand ? have ye your heart yet hardened ? Hav- 
ing eyes, see ye not ? and having ears, hear ye not ? " 

Certainly a miracle is not of the same meaning in 
every age : but it is not always because of its seeming 
to diminish in significance. King Saul believed that 
Ahimelech the priest had " inquired of God," at the 
request of David. At this day it seems, that what- 
ever the answer might be, which even an enemy might 
get as an oracle from God, as though certainly, we all 
of us could only say, " The Lord's will be done ! " But 
Saul did not feel so : but said, " Thou shalt surely die, 
Ahimelech, thou and all of thy father's house." This 
seems to be like insanity ; but things have been en- 
acted and done in Europe within the last century, from 
a state of mind not as intense indeed as that of Saul, 
but like it. And indeed, history may well make the 



MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 253 

most intelligent man fear for himself, as to what non- 
sense or wickedness he may some time find himself 
committed to, for what may have seemed to him to be 
good reasons drawn from theology. But in connection 
with Saul, let us read further. " And the king said to 
Doeg, Turn thou and fall upon the priests. And Doeg 
the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and 
slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did 
wear a linen ephod." Kill a man who could " inquire 
of the Lord," — kill a man who was like the mouth- 
piece of God ! This would seem to be like anything 
but a belief in miracles. Yet actually, it was because 
he was believed to be a man of miracle, that Ahimelech 
the priest was killed. 

" A man of God " had wrought great miracles at the 
altar in Bethel, and an old prophet wished to detain 
him, notwithstanding that he pleaded " the word of the 
Lord " to the contrary. " He said unto him, I am a 
prophet also as thou art ; and an angel spake unto me 
by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with 
thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink 
water. But he lied unto him." Certainly the force of 
a miracle varies with different persons, and from one 
age perhaps to another. But the anti-supernaturalists 
of this age would probably think much more of a 
miracle than would seem to have been felt by an 
ancient Israelite, who not only believed in the possi- 
bility of miracles, but who also was himself known as 
" an old prophet," and who indeed was himself again, 
just about to be made prophetic. In the book of the 
Acts of the Apostles, it is to be read, "And when 
Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles* 



254 MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 

hands, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them 
money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whom- 
soever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. 
But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, 
because thou hast thought that the gift of God may 
be purchased with money." But here some one may 
say, "\ By the manner in which miracles seem to have 
been regarded anciently, and sometimes perhaps by 
those even, who knew best about them, they may not 
really have been what I have thought they were." For 
which the answer is, " Perhaps not : but they are not 
therefore the less true, nor the less Scriptural, nor the 
less significant, nor yet the less reliable as being the 
spiritual mortar with which are cemented together 
those human experiences which constitute the Bible, 
and which make it be like the visible gateway and 
gate, which open into glory, and into the " house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 

Miracles not as wonderful to-day as they were be- 
fore the days of science began, — this is what has 
been sometimes said, and what has been still oftener 
felt. It is true, that we are not as the Egyptians were, 
nor yet as the Jews were, scientifically. But neither 
yet are we as they were, geographically, or historically ; 
and yet vitally we are very like them. Be it so, that 
there is knowledge now about what are called the laws 
of nature ; and that even some of the laws can be in- 
dicated, through the use of which some miracles may 
perhaps have been wrought. What then; does that 
abolish the meaning of a miracle, as a sign ? Or does 
that properly end our human wonder, as to what a 
miracle may mean, or as to who may be the primary 



MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 255 

cause of it ? It might as well be supposed that with 
learning the Greek language, as Plato wrote it, that his 
wisdom would be found to evaporate. The radicals 
and inflections of a language are not thought, but only 
a channel for the expression of thought. And for such 
a " miracle " as is a " sign," the laws of nature, when 
they are concerned, are but the channels of will, power, 
and intelligence, combined in an agency which is in- 
visible, and not fleshly, mortal, nor human. When a 
message reaches a person by telegraph, electricity is 
not the whole explanation of it ; for the significance 
of the message began actually with the person who 
from a distance caused the sign, and sent the commu- 
nication. Science does but make a miracle to be more 
distinctly " a sign." 

It is pleaded as an axiom by some theologians, " If 
we can prove the miracles, we have proved Christian- 
ity.' , What a sense of pertinency these theologians 
must have ; and what a sense, too, of moral fitness ! 
For almost they might as well say, " Learn well the 
multiplication-table, and you will certainly feel the 
genius of Raphael." Before any one can prove the 
truth of Christianity by the miracles of the Scriptures, 
he must be able to show the spiritual philosophy of 
miracles, and thereby be able to make people discern, 
for themselves, the possibility and probability of mira- 
cles having really happened. But this is a thing which 
is never thought of by the man, who thinks that he 
can create a belief in Christianity, by an historical 
argument as to miracles. "The Bible is the word 
of God, and the miracles in it are the seals of the 
Almighty ; and I can show that always those miracles 



256 MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 

have been believed ; and if we believe them, then we 
are Christians." A very simple argument this is, 
certainly ; but somehow, the end of it, even when it is 
best managed, is acquiescence, simply, and not convic- 
tion, and of course, not fervent conviction. As indeed 
how should it be ? . For actually the argument, as it is 
usually conducted, presupposes a state of mind, un- 
fortunately not unlike that of the Israelites under 
Moses. Says Lightfoot in his Horse Hebraicse et Tal- 
nmdicae, " They went under four or five miracles : as 
the appearing of the cloud of glory, the raining of 
manna, the flowing of the rock, or the waters at Horeb, 
the continual newness of their clothes, and the untired- 
ness of their feet. Yet did they forget and were con- 
tinually repining against him, that did all these won- 
ders for them." 

There is a curious narrative connected with the Jews 
while in the desert, which shows that miracles may be 
profoundly believed by some persons, and yet to no 
good purpose ; because of their state of mind, being 
itself akin to idolatry, as being blind and sensual. 
For the sins of the people, there was amongst them a 
plague of fiery serpents. But afterwards, " The Lord 
said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it 
upon a pole : and it shall come to pass that every one 
that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." 
This was a miracle, which was of a kind, by which 
there was likely to be a deep and permanent impres- 
sion made. And so in the Second Book of Kings, at 
a date which would seem to be seven hundred years 
later than that miracle in the desert, it is to be read 
that King Hezekiah " removed the high places, and 



MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 257 

brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake 
in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made ; for 
unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense 
to it. And he called it Nehushtan," that is, a piece of 
brass. And at the present day, there are persons, high 
and low in intelligence, and some of whom would look 
grandly, if arrayed in their worldly circumstances, who 
inwardly are of that old Jewish company in the des- 
ert, and who, but for the spirit of the time, could 
almost more easily worship a " sign " rather than God, 
who reveals himself through it. 

It has been said, rather arrogantly, that with the 
growth of intellect miracles will cease to interest men. 
What, then, with the growth of intellect, will men be 
curious about ? Because oysters, intellectually, will 
not serve forever, nor monads, nor yet gorillas. And 
it would seem, indeed, as though miracles might serve 
men as subjects for inquiry, and as suggestions for 
speculation, even after the earth shall have yielded 
up every one of its hidden secrets. 

With the growth of intellect, some men have fancied 
that the basis of morals, and also the sanction, is sim- 
ply utility. And it has happened even that "the 
world by wisdom knew not God." At present, of that 
world, to which men are related by bodily organiza- 
tion, the curiosities and laws draw an interest dispro- 
portionately great in comparison with what is felt as 
to those laws and wonders, which are connected with 
man as " a living soul." This, however, is only by an 
accident of the moment, and because of the weak- 
ness of the human intellect; which, though it be 
only of yesterday, is yet confronted simultaneously 

Q 



258 MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 

with the necessities of the passing hour, and with 
problems akin to the infinite and eternal. There may- 
have been times when miracles were senselessly mag- 
nified ; and it would seem as though there might also 
be a time when they may be as absurdly neglected. 

But yet miracles, and even of the far distant past, 
will interest man as long as he is a creature of aspira- 
tion and hope, because of their being evidences of a 
spiritual world, and proofs also, that man spiritually is 
enriched with receptiveness against " when the times 
of refreshing shall come from the presence of the 
Lord," whether in this world or the next. For indeed 
there is not a miracle but is an argument as to our hu- 
man nature, for what it is in its faculties, and what its 
connections must be with a world invisible, of angels 
and agencies, which it is a glory to think of. 

Miracles effete as to meaning, — what a strange no- 
tion ! Because that they never can be, while men can 
wonder and reverence, and believe in the certainty of 
what must transcend their own pettiness, and dust, 
and ignorance. 

Miracles effete as to meaning ! That they never can 
become while men are human, mortals who have not 
yet become immortal, and clear of the fleshly veil, 
which separates between us newly created spirits, and 
that world eternal, immortal, invisible, for which we 
are predestined, but which yet " flesh and blood cannot 
inherit." 

Miracles effete as to meaning ! That they can never 
be ; while men can have their thoughts started afresh, 
from time to time, as to who they themselves may be, 
or what, relatively, their place in the universe may be, 



MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 259 

under that Supremacy of Power which is called God, 
and as among " all things created, that are in heaven, 
and that are in earth, visible, and invisible, whether 
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
powers." 

Miracles effete as to meaning ! That can never be, 
while the human soul is in its inmost self, prophetic, 
and capable at times of being " taught of God," and 
of showing graces, which have been quickened from 
above. 

Miracles effete as to meaning ! That can never be, 
while a man can be a wonder to himself ; for, by the 
mysteriousness of his own nature, when he feels it, a 
man knows that the surrounding universe must cer- 
tainly be alive with laws and marvels, against the as- 
tounding effects of which his soul is saved, only by 
the creative arrangements of God, who lets his uni- 
verse " not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as 
unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." 

Miracles may cease to interest men, as prodigious 
tales of distant ages, and remote places ; or as occur- 
rences, of which there can nothing be made. But 
" miracles," as " signs," will be significant as long as 
human nature lasts ; which means, so long as men are 
mortal, and have their daily walk bordered by a world 
immortal, whence effects are possible, or can even pos- 
sibly be imagined, as to influence or intervention. 

Because, according to the Scriptures, all human be- 
ings are more or less susceptible of the miraculous, or 
of being acted upon, otherwise than through their 
bodily senses ; or, more exactly still, of being influ- 
enced from the spiritual world. 



260 MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 

It is true, that we live by laws, some of which prob- 
ably are unknown, and others of which are named re- 
spectively as being chemical, dynamic, electric, odic, 
and vital : but, at the best, this all is but a scientific 
and incomplete statement of what St. Paul credited 
even the heathen for knowing as to God, when he said, 
that, " In him we live, and move, and have our being. ,, 

Living and moving in God, and as his offspring ! 
Then the realm of nature does not bound the circum- 
ference of our susceptibilities, even at this present time, 
probably. And then certainly, also, there must be la- 
tent in us the germs of new beginnings, which may 
start with us, as to effects, in one world after another, 
on our eternal progress ; and as to which, for opening 
and delight, he may well be trusted, to whom we be- 
long, and who is " from everlasting to everlasting." 

And now, finally, a " miracle " being a " sign," what 
is a sign ? It may have at the time of its giving, an 
individual and momentary pertinency ; but it has also 
for everybody, who knows of it, a personal and eternal 
meaning. In the sense of "miracle," a "sign" is a 
sign made for mortals, from the world immortal ; and 
it is also a proof that the soul of man is in some kind 
of affinity with wonder-working powers, which are 
active outside of that realm of nature, with which we 
are familiar by our bodily senses or common experi- 
ence. 

When read of in a thoughtless way, miracles in the 
distance may be but mere marvels ; but really when 
they are " signs " they are signs which have been made 
for men, from the spiritual world ; and they are illus- 
trations of the laws of that world, which we mortals 



MIRACLES AS SIGNS. 261 

belong to spiritually ; and they are evidences of the 
interest, which is felt there, about us spirits in the 
flesh. Miracles considered as signs, are flashes of light 
by which we all of us may discern the grandeur and 
also the peril of our earthly walk. 

It was argued by St. Peter, that prophecy in the 
Scriptures had never been merely for individuals, be- 
cause of its having been a movement by the Holy 
Ghost. And like his argument, is what St. Paul wrote 
to the Corinthians, as to even the distant miracles of 
the age of Moses : " Now all these things happened 
unto them for ensamples ; and they are written for our 
admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are 
come." 



MIRACLES AND* THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

ACCORDING to the book of Genesis, the creation 
of man was thus, — " The Lord God formed man 
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos- 
trils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." 
There may perhaps, at the Creation have been more 
ways than one, by which man might have grown in 
knowledge; but that which obtained with him, was 
what is referred to, in Ecclesiastes, where it is said that 
"much study is a weariness of the flesh" ; and which 
indeed often ends in self-confusion ; and which also, at 
the best, commonly incurs some loss, as a counterbal- 
ance against every gain. And because for us human 
beings, science, or philosophy, or learning, or all of them 
combined, are only a lamp of knowledge, it happens 
that things are out of sight or in it, and seem great or 
seem small, not because of what they are in them- 
selves, as because of the light, by which they are 
looked at. And hence partly has resulted the strange 
variety of opinions, which have been published oh the 
subject of miracles. Man indeed may well be the 
subject of marvellous experiences : " For we are but of 
yesterday and know nothing." And yet there is not 
one of us but might say, " The Spirit of God hath 
made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given 
me life." Images of God as we are, and living souls, 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 263 

we have all of us, been created in the spirit of the 
universe, and are therefore susceptible of its disclos- 
ures. And if we have no great or common experi- 
ence of them, in these days of dulness and flesh and 
mortality, we are yet none the less certain of having 
them hereafter, when seraphs shall be on the wing 
about us, and we be walking alongside of "a pure 
river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out 
of the throne of God and of the Lamb." 

In the Scriptures, it is to be read that, more than 
once, leprosy was caused by a miracle, and that several 
times, by a miracle, it was cured. And perhaps by the 
way in which the first man incurred disease, there was 
something miraculous involved, just as certainly as at 
Lystra and other places, through Paul by a bodily 
touch, or by some point in them spiritually being af- 
fected, sufferers were strengthened and cured. Finite 
creatures, surrounded by the infinite, and more or less 
vitally connected with it, we are wrapped about, and 
we are pervaded, by possibilities of a miraculous char- 
acter. " For I am fearfully and wonderfully made : 
marvellous are thy works ; and that my soul knoweth 
right well." 

As to outward appurtenances, and as to those powers 
of his, which tell instantly on the surrounding world, 
generally a man is quick enough, but as to his make, 
it is almost the last thing ever to be thought of. So 
wonderfully am I made, that I do not know myself, 
nor understand myself. And the constitution of my 
body is known to me through discoveries, which are 
only very recent, notwithstanding that the nature of 
the human body was a matter of great and vital con- 



264 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

cern, to millions of men, in many past ages. And the 
more there is known about it, manifestly the more 
there is to learn ; not perhaps as regards its composi- 
tion, but as to its relationship by electricity and mag- 
netism to the atmosphere, and it may be to the sun 
and moon and planets. For indeed we are not simply 
denizens of this earth, but we are creatures of the uni- 
verse, borne about by a planet, which is one of many 
sisters ; the whole family of which are related in every 
direction infinitely. 

A man can hear only what his ears will let him 
hear. Over our heads may be made the music of the 
spheres, though inaudibly to us ; and yet it might be 
distinctly perceptible perhaps, were our hearing a little 
quickened, or were the reporting power of the air or 
the ether a little intensified. This is readily credible. 
And really, by analogy, which is largely what we all 
of us think by, the ongoings of the universe hint to 
all persons, who are not mere arithmeticians or logi- 
cians, that we are concerned with laws, which science 
has never yet detected, and which perhaps, by their 
nature, transcend its methods. And therefore any- 
thing, which might be called a miracle, instead of 
being treated defiantly, should as perhaps being spirit- 
ually " a sign," be as welcome, at least, as the news of 
another asteroid, or of some affinity among salts, just 
freshly detected. " Oh," says some one, " but the Bible 
is enough for me." And so truly it might well be, if 
only he could read it aright. But apparently it was 
not meant, that the Scriptures should be a very easy 
book for everybody, and for all persons alike, the self- 
conceited and the humble, the worldly-wise and the 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 265 

man " taught of God." Else, how does it happen, 
among Christians, that there are so many sects, Eoman 
Catholic, Greek Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist Epis- 
copalian, Presbyterian, Orthodox, Unitarian ? The 
Bible, as a history of the manifestation of the Spirit 
of God, the writer hereof trusts to, as his highest 
guidance ; but he believes that it was meant to be read 
as it was given, concurrently with Providence, and by 
the help of such light therefrom, directly and indi- 
rectly, as may fall, from time to time, on such eyes as 
may be open to receive it. All criticism, historical, 
dogmatic, chronological, being fairly allowed for, the 
Bible is manifestly to-day, the greatest treasure which 
is held in any earthen vessel ; and such it will be to 
the end of time, no doubt, or at least till time shall 
begin again in some new aeon, millennial or other. 
But though the Bible is always the same, as to what is 
written, the eyes with which it is read vary at least 
from one generation to another. By Providence, it is 
ordained that men shall pass through this life of ours, 
one generation after another ; and through Providence 
also it is foreordained, that for the people who read it 
in succession, the Bible shall widen in meaning. For, 
anything from the Spirit of God, addressed to mere 
spirits in the flesh, must be found to mean more and 
more, the longer it is looked at. 

No one, with an eye for history, can glance across 
it, without being struck by the manner in which often 
beliefs grow and fail, and apparently without sufficient 
reasons, from among men themselves. A striking re- 
mark was made by an awe-struck writer as to the French 
Revolution, and by De Tocqueville, perhaps; and it 
12 



266 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

was this, that the spirit of that revolution went abroad, 
touching and transforming persons in a way, which 
was not to be accounted for humanly, either as to be- 
nevolence, religion, or taste; but spreading as though 
by infection. And no doubt with that strange mani- 
festation, there was more concerned than simply the 
diffusion of words. Men were men, and tongues were 
tongues ; but there was that in the air, which the men 
breathed, which perhaps was new. It may have been 
something of the nature of magnetism, which may 
possibly have originated altogether with men them- 
selves ; or it may have been something of that kind, 
intensified through spiritual affinities, active in more 
directions than one. It was a something, so to say, in 
the air : and as some bodily diseases are infectious, so 
also, it would seem, are some diseases of the spirit. 
And in both cases the condition of disease is sugges- 
tive of the channels of health, and may illustrate 
them. And the reverse of panic or of fanaticism by 
infection is courage or is faith, by the Holy Ghost. 
And we are Christians fully and joyously, only as far 
as it has been our personal experience, that " By one 
Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we 
be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and 
have been all made to drink into one Spirit/' Com- 
monly, logic is but an oar, almost without a blade, by 
which a thinker fancies that he is making an inde- 
pendent course ; while really his soul is afloat upon a 
stream which is infinitely stronger than his arm : and 
while he thinks that he is rowing himself indepen- 
dently of all the forces of the universe, he is carried in- 
deed to a port of his willing, but which he would never 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 267 

have aimed at, but for the air upon the water, and 
which indeed he had to breathe for his life. And at , 
the best, and in order to be at its best, logic is only 
movement, step after step. It does but work slowly, 
and as it were on the deck of a ship, which itself may 
all the while be driven of the winds of heaven, and 
tossed upon the waves of the deep. 

Live believingly by logic alone ! That is what a 
man may do, with only the one half of his nature 
alive ; and that, of course, the half of him, which is 
only a little more than what does live "by bread 
alone." But to find the way to the Father in heaven 
by logic would be such a hard thing for even the 
greatest intellect that God condescends to us. And at 
this day, by a miracle, which has never been inter- 
mitted since the days of Pentecost, for those of us who 
are willing, " God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 

To live by logic, working merely on earthly infor- 
mation, is what may be done by individuals, and 
almost even by individual generations ; but it is what 
cannot last, because of its not being human. For we 
human beings, though native to " the heavens and the 
earth, which are now," are yet now already living with- 
inside the outskirts of " a city, which hath foundations, 
whose builder and maker is God." And so, certainly, 
until the last man shall have been gathered into the 
bosom of eternity, miracles, marvels, wonders will be 
dear to the human race as proofs, presumptively, that 
men are of more than fleshly make, and as " signs," per- 
haps even vouchsafed to them, of there being another 
world than this, in which we live, and have to die. 



268 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

Hard as glass is, yet it is pervious to the impalpable 
rays of light; and electricity will run along a wire 
hundreds of miles in length. Well then may the 
" wonderfully made " body of man be credited for sus- 
ceptibilities, which though they may commonly be 
occult, may yet also sometimes be the channels of 
great wonders. "As thou knowest not what is the 
way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the 
womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest 
not the works of God who maketh all." 

Human beings are spirits held in clay ; and though 
that clay indeed be vitalized by the lungs and the heart, 
it is yet porous and pervious to forces which sweep 
round the world, or which stream from pole to pole, 
such as electricity and magnetism. And there is also 
the odic force. And concurrently with these forces, 
only so lately known of, though now so positively 
ascertained, it would seem as though there might be 
other powers, higher and still more occult than they. 
And therefore it might seem as though some doctrines 
and statements in the Scriptures should reasonably ap- 
pear to be more credible to such persons as have doubted 
spiritually, because of their having been infected by 
materialism. In man there is an eye for seeing, and an 
ear for hearing ; and it is through the air that ear and 
eye both perceive. And through the air also there is 
the possibility by which a great thunder-storm at the 
Cape of Good Hope might be known of almost in a 
moment, as affecting the atmosphere electrically, at 
Cape Horn, and on the Himalaya Mountains. 

Think of the electric telegraph, as to what it is in 
itself and as to the way in which it works ; and under 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 269 

the best information, consider what man is as to body 
and spirit ; and then many strange marvels will seem 
indeed to be transcendent, but not therefore unnatural 
nor incredible, — such as prophetic dreams, sudden 
persuasions as to far distant occurrences, the expe- 
riences of second sight, an occasional apparition even, 
and deep, true impressions received unaccountably, and 
as though from some whispering spirit. Electricity 
seems to be, in common language, more than the half 
of the distance from matter to spirit. And it is con- 
ceivable, and it would seem even to be highly proba- 
ble, that as electricity coexists with gravitation, so 
there may also be forces in the universe, transcending 
electricity, and nearly akin even to spirit itself. And 
with these powers, probably, we mortals are concerned 
more or less, as we are with magnetism or with the 
oxygen of the atmosphere. 

But it may be asked, " If there be a spiritual atmos- 
phere, or anything like it, which concerns man, and 
through which spiritual causes may affect him, why 
has he never been informed of it, by revelation, just 
as by revelation he learns that he is spirit as well as 
body ? " To this question the answer is very simple. 
Man lives by breath ; and yet he was not born with 
an instinctive philosophy as to the properties, uses, and 
dangers of the common air. And after all these thou- 
sands of years, since the first man died, men are but 
now just beginning to understand the nature of the at- 
mosphere. Even if the science of spirit had been im- 
parted to the first man, it could not have lasted long 
with men, if it had been widely out of keeping with 
their science as to nature. And this indeed would 



270 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

seem to be implied by the words of Jesus, " Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and 
testify that we have seen ; and ye receive not our wit- 
ness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye be- 
lieve not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly 
things ? " And thus, indeed, ultimately, instead of 
there being a domination of Christianity by science, 
it will result that science will but have predisposed 
Christians themselves for a better understanding of 
the Bible. For there are some important verities in 
the Scriptures, which are almost latent at present. 
And indeed truths uttered from the Spirit, in human 
words, or in metaphors derived from nature, must 
always have to wait long, before they can commonly 
be well understood, because they are only to be " spirit- 
ually discerned/' 

A thousand years ago, and even almost within the last 
two hundred years, in the most enlightened spot of Eu- 
rope, a farmer toiled upon his land, and felt the while 
as though outside of his township there was nothing 
but danger and darkness. To-day, however, there is 
not an American agriculturist but feels that to do well, 
he must know of the circumference of the world, and 
also of the natural forces which sweep through the 
land, and which keep the earth alive ; and that indeed 
for skill, he has got to be one of " the laborers together 
with God." There has been this great change with 
"the natural man." And is it not, then, reasonable to 
expect an extension of that knowledge, which is the 
field of " the spiritual man " ? 

Doubt about a miracle, merely as a great surprise ! 
And yet by optics, there have been as great surprises 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 271 

given to men, as any spirit ever gave. And surely, if 
a man did not study science, and think by it, as a sol- 
dier moves, who has been sworn to service, and whose 
business it is to know no more than what he is put 
upon, optics alone might well predispose him to believe 
in marvels, without end. 

Look at a tadpole through a microscope, and what a 
marvel is manifested out of nothing ! Yet the micro- 
scope is as true, in its way, as the telescope ; and prob- 
ably there are spirits living, in the universe, who be- 
long to a region far below the steps of the throne of 
God, whose eyes have of themselves the power of both 
telescope and microscope combined. Also we, human 
beings, by birth, probably have visual faculties as 
strong as telescope and microscope, but for the flesh in 
which we walk about. With a little bodily disorgani- 
zation, the spirit of a man becomes " clairvoyant," and 
he can read well, and can even walk and climb more 
securely with his eyes shut than when wide awake. 
So, even scientifically, a man should be inclined to be- 
lieve in miracles, as wonders, or as signs made from 
steps above him, in intelligence. 

By the electric telegraph, we begin to realize certain 
characteristics of the spiritual world, and, as Sweden- 
borg would say, the comparative unimportance of time 
and space. At any hour, almost, it is possible for a 
person to communicate with any city in Europe, though 
at a distance, perhaps, of three or four thousand miles. 
But, in comparison with this actuality, it would have 
seemed, a hundred years ago, that intercourse was just 
as likely with " Jerusalem, which is from above." And 
surely, if man be " a living soul," and be, by birth, a 



272 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

native of " the world which now is," and heir to " the 
world which is to come," it would seem as though the 
marvels which science discovers might be but the 
earthly counterpart of miracles or " signs " unearthly, 
which denote solemnly the opening of the heavens, 
and that something may be happening, like what was 
meant when it was said, prophetically, that " times of 
refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." 

If the ancients could possibly be confronted with 
the philosophers of the present time, it might well be 
proposed for them to compromise as to incredulity, and 
that the moderns should believe in the spiritual world 
because of science, and that the ancients should be- 
lieve in science because of their belief in spirit ; for, 
really, miracles are what signs are possible from an ex- 
tra-sensual world, while science is largely the report 
of semi-sensual forces, outside of that solid world in 
which anciently men thought that they lived. 

But, if we are accessible from the spiritual world by 
influences or visitants, why have we never been told 
of it ? And now, really, what more express telling 
could there possibly be, on any subject, anywhere, than 
there is on this, in the Scriptures ? And again, if there 
be an opening between this world and another, it may 
be asked, why the way of it is not to be read of in the 
Scriptures. But now, there is a philosophy of this 
present world, which has only very lately been known 
of, but yet to the advice of which chemically, as to 
health, we trust ourselves implicitly. And if it should 
be objected, " Oh, but the soul ! How can a man think 
to know more about it than his ancestors did ? " And 
to this, answer may be made by another question, and 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 273 

it is this : " What kind of a creature would man have 
been, if, by his science, he had been a Troglodyte or a 
dirt-eater, and been also bright the while, with the 
wisdom of a seraph, and warm with the love of a 
cherub ? " Certainly, it cannot have been otherwise 
than that at the creation of man, it must have been 
ordained, that he should have the Intellectual Universe 
disclose itself to him spiritually, as fast at least, as he 
of himself should be able to find it out scientifically. 

" The heavens declare the glory of God, and the fir- 
mament showeth his handiwork." That was David's 
belief. But then David believed in enlightenment 
from above ; and indeed, among his last words he said, 
" The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word 
was in my tongue." The Psalmist said, " The heavens 
declare the glory of God." But there are persons as- 
suming the attitude of philosophers at this present 
time, who w-ould say, " There cannot, perhaps, be glory 
for what has not self-consciousness ; but truly and 
grandly the heavens, on being found out, do declare the 
glory of astronomers and the human intellect." And 
there are people who think that this sentiment is 
something new ! And yet their forefathers in intelli- 
gence, thought in the same way, perhaps, twenty-five 
hundred years ago ; for, in the book of Habbakuk the 
prophet, there is to be read of fishermen who worshipped 
their nets, because of a good catch. " Therefore they 
sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their 
drag ; because by them their portion is fat, and their 
meat plenteous." To grow in intellect, or even in the 
humblest skill, is to grow godless, except as those sus- 
ceptibilities in a man are kept open which are God- 
12* R 



274 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

wards. " But," as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, 
" but as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things 
which God hath prepared for them that love him. 
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit : 
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, 
save the spirit of man, which is in him ? even so the 
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." 
And in the proper sense of the word " miracle," the 
Spirit of God, as it is experienced by individual Chris- 
tians, from one generation to another, is itself a con- 
tinuous, unceasing miracle in the world. 

In a right temper, when a man remembers that his 
life began with his birth, only a very few birthdays 
back, then no wonder seems to him so great, as even 
his own ability to ask about a miracle. And no mira- 
cle, perhaps, ever was greater than what is implied by 
the manner, in which a person can be accused by his con- 
science all through his life. For, what actually would 
conscience seem to be ? It is a faculty of human na- 
ture, certainly, and yet, certainly, not in quite the same 
way as logic is ; for, it is a faculty which would seem 
to be open to re-enforcement, and to have in it the 
spirit of a higher world, for meaning and strength. 
Conscience, by its manner of acting, would predispose 
to a belief in " signs and wonders " and miracles. 

It is a common conceit, that between matter and 
spirit there is such a gulf of separation, as that the 
possibility of anything spiritual in this world, may 
rightly be denied at once, whether it be as regards 
angels or devils or apparitions, or the Holy Spirit, the 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 275 

Comforter. And this notion is common even with 
some mere Scripturists. And yet, surely, there is 
nothing like it in the Scriptures. The laws of the 
material world act together, like those of the human 
body : and they connect together in such a way, the 
lower with the higher, as to suggest spirit itself as the 
end, if that may be called an end which is a begin- 
ning, connected with immortality. 

In the human body, what diverse laws do by some 
means communicate with one another ; as the chemi- 
cal with the dynamic, and these again with other laws, 
such as those of gravitation and electricity f Spirit 
unable to touch or affect matter under any conditions 
— what nonsense ! For, in the body of a man, laws, 
hard to distinguish from spirit, are assembled together, 
and blend, as it were, into one spirit-like force, which 
is called vitality. 

That a spirit cannot do anything for men to know 
of, and cannot give " a sign," seems to some persons to 
be absolutely certain, because, as they think, spirit 
cannot possibly touch, nor handle, nor know of matter ; 
and yet they believe that they, individually, are body 
and spirit united. They cannot tell how anger clenches 
for a man his fist, nor how their own thoughts become 
words ; and yet they are certain that spirit can never 
affect matter in any way ; and they are certain of this, 
notwithstanding that they do not even know what a 
spirit may be. And yet, actually, by its immortal na- 
ture, a spirit may have endless aptitudes, and appli- 
ances, and powers of self-adjustment. 

At one time, anciently, it was held in psychology 
that some demons or wandering spirits were spiritual 



276 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

bodies possessed of absorbent powers, by which they 
could assimilate some of the finer particles of matter 
from the air, and so become thinly embodied, and 
faintly visible. And it would seem as though it prob- 
ably might have been so ; and if so, really it is a very 
curious fact. But other things like it have been re- 
corded; and of which one or two, by pneumatology, 
would seem to have analogies in the Scriptures. And 
on the supposition that they are true, they are more 
important than they might seem to be at the first sight ; 
because they illustrate the possibilities of the universe, 
and the manner in which the supernatural may begin 
from the natural; and even also they may elucidate 
perhaps Christian doctrine. For, if we are the work- 
manship of God, and are created in the image of God, 
it would seem to imply that there must be latent in 
us many affinities, by which hereafter we shall be con- 
nected with the works of God, in many and perhaps 
infinite directions. For if men be "heirs of God," 
they would seem to be qualified by their spirituality, 
and under the Divine permission, to reach and enter 
upon one world after another, notwithstanding what 
the constituent arrangements of those worlds, individ- 
ually, may be. It is to be read in the Book of Eevela- 
tion, " Write, Blessed are they which are called unto 
the marriage supper of the Lamb." And blessed are 
they in the highest ; for, by the wedding-garment they 
are free of every mansion in the Father's house. And, 
as children of God Most High, it would seem as though 
there must be the possibility by birth, for all souls to 
be free of all worlds, not in a moment, of course, but 
only very slowly. Because human souls are but crea- 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 277 

tions, as it were, of yesterday; and though they are 
predestined to be eternal, yet, while living by the 
laws of nature, they might well appear in the eyes of 
an archangel to be but like phosphorescent particles 
upon the sea of time, which are bright for a moment, 
and then vanished forever. " But thanks be to God, 
which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ;' 

Some persons are utterly disconcerted, when it is 
urged seriously as to God, that " In him we live and 
move, and have our being," and that, thence as a fact, 
there are inferences to be drawn, as to what human 
beings are, or may hope to be. And yet that text, 
" Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you," 
and that beginning of prayer, " Our Father which art 
in heaven," — these would seem to teach that, while 
yet in the flesh, w r e may be living by the Spirit, and 
that really "signs" are possible for us, even though 
there may never be more than one " sign " to be real- 
ized by us, while we are earthly. But that one sign, 
however, should perhaps be the greatest of miracles 
for those who can apprehend it ; and it is this, — that 
we and God are living together — he " from everlast- 
ing to everlasting," and we by " the breath of the Al- 
mighty." 

Oh that infesting, nonsensical notion of there being 
a sharp line of demarcation between matter and spirit, 
in consequence of which, in the universe, somewhere 
or other, there is non-intercourse ! And if really there 
were such a line, man would not be concerned with it ; 
for, if man be clay, he is also spirit with all its prop- 
erties, some of which certainly are active with him, 
though others may be dormant. 



278 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

Under God, this universe is a living whole, dust and 
stars alike included, and from coral insects up to " the 
seven Spirits which are before his throne." 

For most persons, the omnipresence of God, notwith- 1 — —1 
standing its infinite significance, is almost a benumb- 
ing phrase, because of the inane manner in which it 
has been taught as a doctrine. " Fear not them which 
kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but 
rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and 
body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a far- 
thing ? and one of them shall not fall on the ground 
without your Father. But the very hairs of your head 
are all numbered." The full meaning of these sayings 
of Jesus perhaps the most pious man living has never 
felt, even while agreeing to it thoroughly as being the 
truth. And as to miracles, there is more than one way 
of believing. For, to acquiesce in certain ancient state- 
ments, merely because we cannot deny James, and 
John, and Peter, is not a very quickening faith. And 
even to trust our own senses, as to marvels, may well 
be, without our being spiritually minded. Mere assent 
as to miracles is a very different thing from knowing 
of them believingly, in the spirit of wonder, and from 
a sense of our being widely connected with an un- 
known universe. 

Unknown by us, and yet not utterly unknown is 
this universe, wherein we are dwellers. Our souls, at 
present, live cased in clay, and according to the laws 
of this planet, which is called earth ; but when our 
souls, by the death of the body, shall be free of such 
laws as enchain us through matter, we shall find our- 
selves as to God, still saying as we do now, that " In 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 279 

him we live and move and have our being." And so 
shall we have to say to all eternity : because by our 
living and moving in God, we are now already, living 
in that Spirit, infinite and eternal, which knows noth- 
ing of height or depth, as being itself all which there 
is of either, — that spirit, without which the lightning 
cannot flash, nor the glow-worm shine, which lets loose 
"the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and which 
strengthens " the bands of Orion," and from the sense 
of which, once, about this earth, " the morning stars 
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," 
— that spirit, which is nature in those " who, having 
not the law, are a law unto themselves," and which 
again as being above the law, can quicken where " the 
flesh profiteth nothing," — ■ that spirit by which the 
prophets prophesied, and David as a psalmist was in- 
spired to sing, and which yet is freer than daily bread, 
for such persons as can really ask for it, — that spirit, 
which is the consummation of all miracles in one, for 
the man who has full experience of it, because " Now 
the Lord is that Spirit," and " He that is joined unto 
the Lord is one spirit." 

That a miracle should be defined or be objected to, 
as an act suspending the laws of nature, may seem, at 
this stage in our argument, to be absurd, as perhaps it 
really is. For a miracle says about itself, only that it 
is " miraculum," a little wonder, or a " sign and won- 
der." An angel might give me a sign, at the recollec- 
tion of which hereafter, I should smile, should I ever 
become an archangel. But because I can anticipate 
the possibilities of eternity in this bold manner, it does 
not follow that a miracle is anything less than miracu- 



280 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

lous to-day, or less than a precious hint given to me 
from outside of this world, as to there being more 
spiritual activities than I know of, and with some of 
which my own nature may be more or less involved, 
by affinity. 

Miracles are dike signs, made from steps above me, 
on Jacob's ladder. The dream of Jacob, on leaving his 
father's house, is curiously illustrated by the theory of 
Plato, as to the spiritual universe and the manner in 
which men are influenced and taught ; and it is won- 
derfully corroborated by the spirit of the Book of 
Eevelation, and incidentally indeed and often by texts, 
throughout the New Testament. St. James writes in 
his Epistle, " Every good gift and every perfect gift is 
from above, and cometh down from the Father of 
lights." Most wonderful indeed is that dream, or 
probably that vision in a dream, wdiich happened to 
the patriarch Jacob in Syria, some thirteen hundred 
years before the age of Plato the philosopher of Greece. 
" And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the 
earth, and the top of it reached to heaven : and behold 
the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 
And behold the Lord stood above it, and said, I am 
the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of 
Isaac." And to-day that ladder stands over every one 
of us, the emblem of revelation, and of the divine 
government of the world; even though on to the 
lower steps of it, spirits, who are not angels, may get 
to stand for a moment, and thence give signs occasion- 
ally. It is true, that when my spirit shall be called up 
the height of that ladder, I shall transcend the greatest 
of all such miracles as I have ever yet known of; but 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 281^ 

then, too, I shall have the stars beneath my feet, and 
science itself also, and I shall have learned perhaps 
what the song was, which was sung over our newly 
created earth, when " all the sons of God shouted for 

joy" 

Men are the children of the Father in heaven, /and 
not simply occupants of a planet, and natives of difEy 
cities or the sweet country. And there is in every on£ 
of us, now already, what will correspond with every 
step on that ladder, which Jacob saw reach up to 
heaven. And what becomes us, as mortals, is to trust 
in the certainty of that ladder, and in the reality of 
those affinities, by which we are connected with spirits 
and angels, and through which miracles are possible, 
and signs can be vouchsafed for us. 

Said Jesus to his disciples, " Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I 
do shall he do also : and greater works than these shall 
he do, because I go unto my Father." In comparison 
with greater works miraculously, there must be some 
which are less. And it would not be altogether apart 
from the prophecy of Jesus himself, should it be found 
that in some places, at certain times, miracles of heal- 
ing, because of their frequency, had been less thought 
of, than they were among the Jews, in the age of Jesus. 
And if this were true, what then ? For, what is a 
miracle, but a sign ? And what is a sign, in the sense 
of a miracle, but signification of there being power 
which concerns us, though outside of our ordinary 
world. It would seem, then, as though conceivably 
the miracle of one age, might become so common in 
another, as to begin even to grow less wonderful. But 



282 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

the more, what had been a miracle, should lose in won- 
der, the more significant still would it grow in another 
way, as making more and more certain what at first it 
had only hinted as to the vital, spiritual, eternal con- 
nections between spirits in the flesh and the spiritual 
universe. Because, indeed, we mortals belong to the 
world immortal, invisible, through our spiritual nature, 
by perhaps a thousand powers or susceptibilities, which 
probably are nearly all of them merely latent in us at 
present. And of these latent powers, it may be, that 
the miracles of all ages have been intended to suggest 
for us the actuality of some five or six. 

For the " heirs of the kingdom," doubtless it will 
prove that all the miracles of the Scriptures will have 
been but like prophecies of the powers, and the joys, and 
the company to which they were destined to attain. 
And this supposition is perhaps by the same line of 
thought as that along which St. Paul looked, when he 
foresaw as to Jesus Christ that " when all things shall 
be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also himself 
be subject unto him, that put all things under him 
that God may be all in all." 

There cannot possibly be any power in nature at 
large, which man can discover, but must have some 
meaning for him, as to his own nature, and be indeed 
in some sense, an extension of it. Nor is there anything 
spiritually, of which man can be persuaded, as having 
spiritually discerned it, but must prove for him, an in- 
troduction to some glory beyond, and which may reach 
up the heights of heaven to all eternity. 

The telescope and the microscope are merely human 
inventions, but even they report that there are worlds 



MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 283 

within worlds, and worlds beyond worlds, which con- 
cern us. But when these instruments discover won- 
ders, in their way, in the material universe for the ma- 
terial man j they do also, to the man who is spiritually 
minded, suggest prophetically as to the spiritual world, 
of there being wonders there, which are only the be- 
ginnings of wonders, and of there being one heaven 
above another heaven. 

As binding worlds together, and as holding them in 
intercourse for some purposes, gravitation and magnet- 
ism and electricity may be instanced as powers. And 
also they may be regarded as gross similitudes as to 
the ways, by which our spirits will find themselves 
living hereafter, when possessed by aspirations after 
the heaven of heavens. 

The universe is all alive, and it is alive all through- 
out it. And miracles are signs made for us mortals by 
spirits, in different conditions from ours, higher it may 
be, and perhaps even lower, and perhaps even as high 
as that of the Seven Spirits. 

But when miracles are signs from heaven, there 
comes with them that Spirit, which is its own evidence 
for those who can feel it, because of the irresistible 
manner in which the spiritual man is thereby per- 
suaded. When God Most High touches a man with 
the finger of miracle, the man feels that touch in his 
inmost nature, as to holiness and newness of life. But 
miracles of a lower origin than the highest, may for 
some persons, excite only the externality of their na- 
ture, and make them perhaps merely wonder, and per- 
haps also grow in self-conceit. 

But whatever the constitution of the universe may 



284 MIRACLES AND THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. 

be, of worlds within worlds, or of heavens one above 
another, we mortals are the offspring of the living God, 
the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible. And there is 
that in every one of us, which quickened by his 
Spirit, would be affinity with all worlds, and with 
everything which has ever happened under the throne 
of God. " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
spirit, that we are the children of God ; and if chil- 
dren, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with 
Christ. 5, 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATTIER 



AGAINST the probability of miracles, or of " signs 
and wonders," ever having been vouchsafed, it has 
been objected that they are such things as could not 
always and everywhere, and to all men be equally 
credible and important. And so it is supposed, that 
the miracles of the Scriptures are inconsistent with the 
Providence of a just God, unless the impression made 
by them should have been uniform as to meaning and 
authority, from the time of the eyewitnesses to the 
last public professions by Christian converts in Mad- 
agascar and China. But otherwise are all men im- 
pressible alike, and exactly by the same thing ? Is 
the same sensation received from the sun, by both 
Lapps and Bengalese ? Is there any drug, which is 
uniform as to strength and effect on persons of every 
age, tribe, and region ? From even a table of loga- 
rithms, would a uniform impression be received by 
everybody, withinside of even the four walls of a mar- 
ket-place ? And from any chapter of the Bible, even 
though read by the best reader, are there two hearers 
in any church or any street, who would receive a uni- 
form impression ? Also, is justice the less certainly 
just, because of the Dyaks of Borneo ? Or is purity 
the less pure, because the negroes of Bonny are not 
impressible as to that virtue, equally with the best 



286 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

nuns of Kome, or with Christian matrons radiant with 
a the beauty of holiness " ? The miracles of the Scrip- 
tures are for all men, but only just as everything spirit- 
ual and intellectual, is for everybody. And indeed the 
full meaning of miracles can be developed, only as they 
are differently apprehended by different minds, by Ori- 
gen and Augustine, by Bossuet, Fenelon and Pascal, 
by Jeremy Taylor, Eobert Barclay, Swedenborg and 
]STeander. 

It is even possible, that the resurrection of Jesus, 
may be more significant to-day, than it was on that 
" first day of the week/' and that it may be better be- 
lieved at this time, after eighteen hundred years, than 
it was even by those who " departed quickly from the 
sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring 
his disciples word/' And indeed there seems, at this 
present time, to be forming such a philosophy of the 
Intellectual Universe, as that in the light of it, the 
fragmentary account of the resurrection of Jesus will 
glow with that newness of meaning, which will be its 
own sufficient evidence as to truth. And already on 
some minds there dawns a light, in which it seems as 
though reaffirmed from above, when it is read, " And, 
behold, there was a great earthquake : for the angel of 
the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled 
back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His 
countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white 
as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and 
became as dead men. And the angel answered and 
said unto the women, " Fear not ye : for I know that ye 
seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here ; for 
he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 287 

Lord lay and go quickly, and tell his disciples that he 
is risen from the dead ; and, behold, he goeth before you 
into Galilee : there shall ye see him : lo, I have told 
you." 

In its relation to human nature, what is a miracle ? 
Simply it is an incident which happens to a mortal 
through his immortal connections. At the mountain, 
by the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus with handling five 
barley loaves, fed five thousand men, " those men, when 
they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said This is 
of a truth that prophet that should come into the world." 
But the next day, in consequence of their behavior, 
" Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, 
but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." 
But indeed of the apostles themselves, the night after 
the miracle, it is written, that having seen Jesus walk- 
ing on the sea, in a storm, and having taken him for 
a spirit, and having had that storm subside with his 
mounting their ship, " they were sore amazed in them- 
selves beyond measure, and wondered. For they con- 
sidered not the miracle of the loaves ; for their heart 
was hardened." The loaves and fishes of the miracle 
had been wonderful food, but yet what could be swal- 
lowed and forgotten ; but if the miracle had been 
understood, and been taken for " a sign and wonder," 
then Jesus would at once have been known as " the 
bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man 
may eat thereof, and not die." According to the Scrip- 
tures, then, a miracle might be food for the body, or it 
might be a cure for it; but when " spiritually discerned," 
it was also " a sign " as to realms and connections out- 
side of the range of * the natural man." 



288 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

It is the Scriptural philosophy as to human nature, 
that man is both body and soul ; and that though 
born into this world, he belongs to a world which is to 
come ; and that he is capable, even on this earth, of 
being born again. This is man as he is known to " the 
Shepherd and Bishop of your souls " ; and also as he is 
created by the Father Almighty, who numbers, every 
moment, everywhere, the hairs of every head, whilst 
yet, also, he is the circumference of the universe as to 
power, and is also Providence to "the young ravens 
when they cry." 

Miracles have occurred to men, not unnaturally, but 
conformably to their nature. A spirit living and mov- 
ing in a marvellous clothing of flesh, — that is what 
man is. A man in a diving-suit, weighed down to the 
floor of the ocean, and exploring it, but endowed with 
faculties by which he would be more completely at 
home in the upper air, hints to us the condition of the 
human being, as he ploughs the earth, and journeys 
about it, endowed the while with faculties, by which he 
may be perhaps free of the heavens, and rich in instincts 
which never here leave him quiet as to his hereafter. 
" For we know that if our earthly house of this taber- 
nacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a 
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 
upon with our house which is from heaven : if so be 
that being clothed, we shall not be found naked." 

Instead of aspiring to what is above, and living by 
aspiration, we may try to accommodate ourselves to 
our immediate circumstances, and propose to " live by 
bread alone," and with only such thoughts and feelings, 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 289 

as are akin to daily bread of our own procuring. But 
in so doing, we can live only, as creatures of the earth, 
earthy. For, by our better nature, there is always in 
us a hunger " for that meat which endureth unto ever- 
lasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you." 
And as to this spiritual meat being within our reach, 
and as to the " well of water springing up into everlast- 
ing life," perhaps miracles, rightly understood, always 
are suggestions or proofs. This, even the woman of 
Samaria would seem to have felt, as, humble and igno- 
rant, she talked with Jesus by the well. And indeed 
always, the more a man has " tasted the good word of 
God, and the powers of the world to come," the more 
confident must he be of that world, as being his natural 
and predestined home. " For the Spirit itself," — and 
therefore, also, all its gifts, whether prophecy, or the 
gifts of healing, or faith, or the working of miracles, — 
" the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that 
we are the children of God." 

In the book of Deuteronomy there is to be read, 
what was affirmed anew by Jesus, when he " was led 
up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of 
the devil " ; and when " he answered and said, It is 
written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." 
And by this text, it would seem to be implied that man 
lives, at his best, contingently on a dispensing will, 
which is higher than nature, and not merely by such 
laws of nature as fulfil upon him the prediction, " In 
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou re- 
turn unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken. 

That there is spiritually any higher source of thought 
13 s 



290 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

for us than nature, and any other inspiration for us 
than from surrounding nature and fellow-creatures, is 
denied by implication, when the possibility of miracles 
is denied. And the possibility of miracles is denied, 
because of what is fancied must be the inviolable uni- 
formity of the laws of nature. And this is said and 
done, as though all the forces and properties and con- 
tingencies and affinities of nature, and the whole broad 
field of it also, were as familiarly known as what a 
player relies upon for his game at a billiard-table. 

For the universe there are laws, some palpable, and 
others which are more or less occult, and there are 
some laws, which, as blood in the veins, are like laws 
within laws ; and of these laws there are some which 
have affinities for one another, and some which are 
mutually repellant. And from all the agency and in- 
tercommunication of these laws, it results that the 
material universe is sustained and quickened by laws 
innumerable, for which as a whole, spirit is the name, 
and no other word. Spirit, indeed, in the full sense 
of the word, is all laws in one : and God is spirit. 

But God manifests himself through what is beneath 
him, and yet mostly perhaps through ranges and 
spheres, far above what men know of. But in our 
planetary system, and in this earth, his creative power 
operates through five, ten, fifty, and perhaps hundreds 
of separable, distinguishable manifestations, which may 
be called laws. And yet because of their four or five 
senses, aided one of them by glasses telescopic and 
microscopic, there are men, who think that from their 
personal knowledge of the ways of the universe, they 
can positively deny the possibility of a miracle, or of 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 291 

any opening, by which an angel, or a spirit or a demon 
might be able to make " a sign." 

A man denying the possibility of a miracle, is a 
creature of yesterday with a little knowledge, and at 
the best, only a very little, who yet dogmatizes about 
the possibilities of the infinite, the invisible, and the 
eternal. 

Telescope and microscope being allowed for as to 
their powers, and anatomy, chemistry, and geology also; 
and botany and icthyology and palaeontology being fully 
credited for their reports, yet the words of Zophar are 
no less pertinent to-day than they were of old, though 
they may sound somewhat more scornfully now than as 
they were first spoken to Job. " Canst thou by search- 
ing find out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty 
unto perfection ? It is as high as heaven ; what canst 
thou do ? deeper th^n hell ; what canst thou know ? " 

High as heaven, deep as hell, — how possibly could 
it be found out ? And miracles are hints, suggestions 
vouchsafed to mortals, as to the inscrutable. 

But how, then, is a man to know a miracle when it 
occurs ? He may know it by his astonishment. For a 
miracle calls itself simply a wonder. If a miracle called 
itself, or if the Bible described it, as being a suspension 
of the laws of nature, it would, of course, be necessary 
to know altogether about all the laws of nature, before 
there could be any certainty as to whether one of them 
were suspended or not. Generally, in the Scriptures, a 
miracle is a wonder. But " a sign and wonder " would 
seem to mean something more express than the vaguely 
wonderful, and to be indeed a significant wonder, " a 
sign from heaven," or possibly elsewhere, made and 
given for a particular purpose. 



292 MIEACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

And it is at this point that the subject of miracles 
becomes serious. For, as to the miracles of the Scrip- 
tures, there are persons who say, as they would say also 
about the marvels of all ages, " It is very likely that 
they did happen ; for all laws have exceptions which 
are wonderful. Also, strange things certainly do hap- 
pen, but always, of course, according to the laws of 
nature. Though we can only seldom know what the 
strange things were exactly, and still less can we ex- 
actly know what the laws of nature were, which may 
have been concerned." These persons do not object to 
miracles, as curious, exceptional facts, and especially 
when ancient. They demur only to the essence of a 
miracle, its soul, its main reason, to its connection with 
another order than this of things visible, and especially 
to its being " a sign " made or given. They would be 
willing to allow that perhaps " Stephen, full of faith 
and power, did great wonders and miracles among the 
people." And miracles in connection with Jesus Christ, 
they would think, might be credited. But miracles 
with an earnest meaning, and connected with God, are 
what they cannot agree to, as being likely. They can 
get back to the day of Pentecost. They are even ready 
to believe that miracles may have happened ; and they 
can get within hearing of the appeal of St. Peter, " Ye 
men of Israel, hear these words ; Jesus of Nazareth, a 
man approved of God among you by miracles, wonders, 
and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, 
as ye also know." But this argument they cannot as- 
sent to. They can believe in a miracle as a marvel, 
but not as " a sign," and especially as vouchsafed by 
God : because for that belief, as St. Paul would say, 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 293 

they have been spoiled " through philosophy and vain 
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments 
of the world." They can assent as they read, " and 
fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and 
signs were done by the apostles." They can believe 
that miracles and wonderful works may have happened ; 
but that they were started as signs from the spirit- 
ual world is what they do not like to have to think. 
Yet of Paul and Barnabas at Iconium it is written 
that "Long time abode they speaking boldly in the 
Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, 
and granted signs and wonders to be done by their 
hands." So, also, they can acquiesce, as they read 
about Philip in the city of Samaria, " And the people 
with one accord gave heed unto those things which 
Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he 
did." But the following verse they can assent to, only 
on the supposition of its being ancient and obsolete 
phraseology. " For unclean spirits, crying with loud 
voice, came out of many that were possessed with 
them." Because that ever the other world was so near 
to this, as to let out upon it " an unclean spirit," which 
could enter into a man or haunt among tombs, is 
what they can think no more than they can heartily 
believe that God " maketh his angels spirits." 

Commonly at this present time, religionists think 
more of the machinery of the universe than of the uni- 
verse itself, and more of even the lowest of his laws 
than they do of even God Most High. Whether of 
demon, ghost, spirit, angel, Son of man in glory, Father 
in heaven, or any other spiritual being whatever, that 
the will can possibly make itself felt by mortal beings, 



294 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

is a supposition which is repugnant to the philosophy 
of the day, or rather to the prejudices which were 
created by science when it was young and insolent, and 
very ignorant of even its own domain, some seventy or 
eighty years ago. That the universe, and that even 
our little surrounding world may have many properties 
of which there is nothing known, is a speculation with 
which science easily coincides, notwithstanding what 
some of its professors may think. The ear, the eye, and 
the tip of the finger are the chief channels of commu- 
nication with the universe for men, by their state of 
nature. But there may be other beings, to whom this 
earth may be another thing than what mortals see ; and 
to whom it may report itself in ways, of which man 
may never get a glimpse. And, conceivably, these 
creatures may be as invisible as electricity is when it 
is latent ; and yet for movement may be as swift as 
thunderbolts, and, as regards God, be even familiar with 
what mortals would call "the hiding of his power." 
Verily, who we are, and what we are, being considered, 
there is a way of arguing from even our human igno- 
rance, which is truer, more just, and more profitable, 
than even the logic of science, as it is narrowed by some 
men. 

As to miracles by the will of God, being incredible 
as acts of divine condescension — that would hardly 
seem to be a just sentiment, while a sparrow cannot 
fall to the ground without the knowledge of the Father 
in heaven ; while the lily is arrayed in glory greater 
than that of Solomon ; and while year after year, an in- 
heritance of instinct is perpetuated from worm to worm 
in the ground. While the glow-worm shines, and while 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 295 

the young ravens are fed for crying, while the turtle, 
the crane and the swallow are shown the times of their 
coming, it may well seem credible as to man, that 
" the inspiration of the Almighty " should be his under- 
standing ; and even that, as he draws nigh to God, he 
should have God draw nearer to him, and lend him 
pefhaps his finger for miracles, and have him pour out 
of his Spirit for Pentecostal purposes. No doubt, as 
true philosophy widens, some words also will w^iden 
and deepen in meaning. But while " father " means 
father, and essentially is the same thing in Christian 
households, and among aboriginal savages, the word 
" God " will never part with its essential meaning, and 
will continue to be, for condescension and love and as- 
sistance, what Paul felt, w 7 hen he wrote of what he had 
been as an apostle " through mighty signs and wonders, 
by the power of the Spirit of God." 

But it is questioned, why one man is not a subject 
for miracles, or an agent, as well as another. But it 
might as well be asked why every man is not a poet, 
and why poets are not all equal. One man is doomed 
by his constitution to die at his thirtieth year ; w^hile 
another man by birth is heir to threescore years and 
thirty. But why is that ? As to ancient Greece, why 
w^ere not the periods of history uniform ; w r hy did not 
every age flower with names as great and rich as those 
of Plato and iEschylus ? And after the death of Eu- 
ripides or the last speech of Demosthenes, why did the 
inspiration of genius fail ; and why was Pausanias a 
mere antiquarian instead of being inspired like Pindar ? 
"Why a thing wonderful is not repeated, — this, instead 
of being the first objection to be made to a miracle, 



296 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

would seem as though it ought to be even the last, in 
accordance with human experience generally. 

As to the probability of miracles having ever oc- 
curred or been vouchsafed, it has been objected that a 
miracle, with advancing intelligence, cannot continue 
to be of the same importance, as at the time of its 
manifestation. But really what inconsideration that is ! 
Shakespeare is a greater man to-day than he was in 
his own age : and so is Milton. And with the growth 
of intellect, and the widening of human experience, a 
miracle instead of meaning less, may actually grow to 
be more significant with the lapse of time. But as one 
miracle may gain in expression with the widening of 
science, so another may lose. For the word " miracle," 
according to the Scriptures, is a general word, covering 
wonders of more classes than one. The casting-out of 
unclean spirits was one of the miraculous works of 
Jesus Christ, though not one of his " greater works." 
But to-day, an " unclean spirit," if it could be proved 
to be existing within human cognizance, would, for the 
Boyal Society of London, be as great " a sign and won- 
der " as even " though one rose from the dead." 

" But," says the modern philosopher, " Oh, but un- 
clean spirits are absolutely incredible, being so utterly 
foreign to our experience. And if really any ever did 
exist, why are there none known of now ? " But perhaps 
they are known of, though not very widely reported. 
Also, if there be any virtue in Christianity, ought it to 
be expected that unclean spirits should be as common 
a nuisance to-day as when Jesus Christ and the early 
disciples first began to cast them out ? Also, if our 
human world changes, may we not also suppose that 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 297 

there may be changes on the spiritual borders of it, and 
along that line, which " unclean spirits " anciently were 
supposed to haunt ? These questions may appear to 
be strange ; but that they should seem so, is itself, per- 
haps, a still stranger thing. But indeed as to strange- 
ness, what is there which can be greater than the fact 
that three, four, and five Christian sects should be in 
controversy with one another as to what really Chris- 
tianity itself may be ? 

For Dr. Biichner and some others, according to their 
own words, clairvoyance or somnambulism, or a per- 
ception of a road or a book, independently of the 
humors of the eye, would be a miracle. And this 
would be because of what they think they know by 
anatomy. For a materialist a clairvoyant is as great a 
miracle as he can ever be shown. But for a Spirit- 
ualist a clairvoyant is no great wonder, even though he 
-manifests the certainty that " there is a spirit in man " 
by showing that, with bandaged eyes, there may be 
perfect sight, and what even can see through a wall. 

Such cures as were wrought through the Prince Ho- 
henlohe, in Germany, about forty years ago, were be- 
lieved by Catholics to be miraculous. But at present, 
cures of the same nature with those of the German 
Prince are common, at the hands of persons wdio are 
not Catholics. Be it allowed that they are done 
through mesmerism : but that would mean only that 
they are wrought through a faculty which w T as partic- 
ularly strong seventy years since, in a man by the name 
of Mesmer. But that faculty would better have been 
named after Greatrex of the seventeenth century, only 
that even before him the faculty had been manifested 
13* 



298 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

by multitudes of persons, not of one country only, 
nor of one century merely, nor even of simply several 
regions and ages. At this moment, the writer hereof 
has on his table an engraving, in which St. Philip Neri, 
by his handling, cures Pope Clement the Eighth of the 
gout. According to the Catholic Church, and the text 
which accompanies the picture, the success of Philip 
Neri was a miracle : and so it was, in a higher or lower 
degree. And that miracles are of various grades as to 
significance, is according to the canons of the Catholic 
Church, and the estimate of the Middle Ages, and the 
doctrine of the Scriptures. Miracles of healing are 
more frequent to-day than they were in the age of St. 
Philip Neri. But the less wonderful miracles of any 
kind become by frequency, the more significant also 
they become in another way. Mesmerism is the rec- 
ognition of the nervous system of a man, as being 
through his fingers, more or less, an outlet of power, 
just as his tongue is. And to-day, mesmerism, with 
the philosophy thereof, means, that after thousands of 
years, men have attained to the knowledge of there 
being one or more psychical laws, through which some 
persons, under some circumstances can help others 
medically. 

Among the Jews, miracles of healing were accounted 
as being greater or less in themselves, and also by com- 
parison, as when it was written of Jesus, that " he 
could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his 
hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them." 

That miracles should ever lose in force by becoming 
common, is an inconsiderate, unspiritual fear. For that 
was never the feeling of those who knew best about 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 299 

miracles. At Taberah, the spirit which was in Moses 
had been imparted by the Lord, to seventy elders of 
the people, stationed about the tabernacle. But si- 
multaneously also two men in the camp prophesied. 
" And there ran a young man, and told Moses and said, 
Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. And 
Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of 
his young men, answered and said, My Lord Moses, 
forbid them. And Moses said unto him, "Enviest 
thou for my sake ? Would God that all the Lord's 
people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his 
spirit upon them ! " For indeed a miracle in itself is 
nothing in comparison with the spiritual universe, as 
to the constitution of which, it is " a sign." As argu- 
ing the reality of a spiritual world and of spiritual 
agencies as affecting men, miracles never possibly can 
lose their meaning, by becoming common, any more 
than logarithms by use would dwindle into common 
arithmetic. 

The more common of the phenomena of spiritualism 
may reasonably be accounted as indisputable facts. 
But they are not equally impressive for all persons. 
For by them, one man is converted instantly from 
materialism to a belief in spiritual power of some kind. 
While another man can be astounded by them, one 
day, and then, the next day, forget utterly what an as- 
tonished man he had been, and a third person will ac- 
knowledge the reality of the marvels, but will hold 
that they are not so useful or suggestive as the tat- 
tooed skull of a Maori, or a potsherd from the mud 
of the Nile. The four rules of arithmetic have the 
same meaning for all intelligent beings, but a poetic 



300 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

phrase has not. And in connection with Jesus himself, 
men were affected by miracles, some in one way and 
some in another. Meodemus could say, " Babbi, we 
know that thou art a teacher come from God ; for no 
man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God 
be with him." But the Pharisees could argue and say, 
* This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub 
the prince of the devils." This was a strange diversity 
of opinion as to the same facts ; and it was not probably 
of intellectual origin, but moral ; and also perhaps not 
moral merely. "At that time, Jesus answered and 
said, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 
because thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes/' And 
when Simon Peter recognized Jesus as being the 
Christ, Jesus said, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona ; 
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
my Father which is in heaven." Fearfully and wonder- 
fully we are made ; and there are conditions in us, both 
of body and spirit, which may have accrued, since our 
birth, quite unaccountably; and through which one 
man is strong in an atmosphere, by which another 
man is weakened ; and through which, also, one per- 
son can believe only a very little beyond what he 
sees ; while another, being receptive of " the spirit of 
wisdom and revelation/' sees things, the eyes of his 
understanding being enlightened. 

It illustrates the manner in which the ways of 
thought have become materialized, that some such a 
sentiment as this can be published, and can even get 
the acquiescence of persons, whose business it is to 
know better. * As to the being of a God and his 



> MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 301 

character, the sons of science must ultimately be the 
judges. And their verdict will have to depend on con- 
troversies and inquiries which are already initiated.' , 
What a notion ! " Who is this that darkeneth counsel 
by words without knowledge ? " Almost it is the spirit 
of the age, and what might reply for itself in the words 
with which Jesus Christ was answered by a demoniac, 
when " he asked him, What is thy name ? And he 
answered, saying, My name is Legion : for we are 
many." Wait for geologists to tell whether there is a 
God or not ! Does not the human soul know about 
that, as well as ever it can be known ? It might as 
well be said, before loving their babies, that women 
should wait for science to justify them, as to the reason- 
ableness of the maternal instinct. A man who does 
not feel God can never find him. And it is only as a 
child of God that ever a man can possibly know of the 
Father in heaven, however great his science may be. 
God is not at the end of a telescope, nor to be dis- 
covered by search among the primitive rocks. God is 
an instinct for us, or else he is nowhere. Wait for 
what science may say, while the human soul itself is 
higher evidence as to God than all surrounding nature ! 
Words of prophecy, and of the highest, and as true as 
nature itself, and as simple, are these : " Zion said, The 
Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten 
me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she 
should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? 
Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." 

A scientific examination, completely successful, w r ill 
report God as he is to the stars, and as he was at the 
composition of the rocks of the primitive and the last 



302 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

formations, and as he still is for what power he endows 
the whirlwind with. What God is to the w^orm may 
be learned from the worm perhaps ; and what also he 
is to the cricket in the grass may be learned by the 
study of its habits. 

" But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee ; 
and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee : or 
speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee ; and the 
fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee." But rocks 
and barnacles, birds, beasts, and fowls, the sea, and the 
sands upon the sea-shore, lilies of the field, and cedars 
like those of Lebanon, — these things all, individually 
and conjointly, can report no more as to God than 
what they can, than what they have experienced. And 
what are they all, altogether, with all their properties 
and qualities combined, in comparison with a human 
soul? 

What God is to the human soul must be something 
more than he is to all external nature, and be therefore, 
probably, something even more hopeful. 

That which God is to the human body may be in- 
ferred from those laws of nature, by which man is akin 
to nature. But w T hat God is to the soul there is nothing 
in nature to suggest, and therefore also nothing to limit. 

Of God in the realm of spirit a mere scientist can 
know nothing from the study of rocks, beetles, and 
astronomy, though the prophet indeed can speak of 
him from inspiration, and the true poet, in his highest, 
happiest mood, from intuition. 

God is more to a butterfly than he is to Mount 
Ararat ; and he is more to an eagle than to a butterfly, 
and he is more to " the natural man " than he is to any 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 303 

eagle. And to man through his spirit God is more 
than he is through his body. And so there may be 
methods of God with man, and expectations from him 
and transcendent hopes, which may be worthy of all 
trust, notwithstanding that nothing like them has ever 
been experienced by dogs or oxen, or been even hinted 
by geology. 

But it may be asked, perhaps, whether it is not 
written that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground 
without the knowledge of God. And certainly and 
happily it is to be read so, and in a connection, also, 
from which it might be inferred that even its feathers 
may be all numbered. And, no doubt, the sparrow 
was one of the fowls of the air which Jesus pointed to, 
as neither sowing nor reaping, but as being fed by the 
Heavenly Father. Also in one of the Psalms it is to be 
read of how the sparrows had built about the temple. 
" Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow 
a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even 
thine altars, Lord of hosts, my King and my God." 
But, in the Scriptures, are men and sparrows referred 
to in the same tone ? In the Bible is not man recog- 
nized as having faculties, susceptibilities, and for God 
Almighty an interest, such as the sparrow, the stork in 
the heaven, the crane, and the swallow have not ? a O 
Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou 
knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising : thou 
understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest 
my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with 
all my ways : for there is not a word in my tongue, but 
lo, Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset 
me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me. 



304 MTRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ; it is high ; I 
cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy 
Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? " 

David was more to God than the sparrow of which 
he sang in his psalm. And the sparrow, chirping and 
feeding, and the same from age to age, for what divine 
care it may exemplify, is surely no argument as to 
human experience of God, as regards either uniformity 
or miracles. Nor rightly can it be, by its monotony 
of life, any presumption against the possibility of there 
having been " signs and wonders " in connection with 
" Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, 
separated unto the gospel of God," or with the early 
Christians, as they watched the fall of the Eoman 
Empire, or with George Fox, as he waited for the 
Spirit, or with John Wesley, in his newness of life, 
after he had been " born, not of blood, nor of the will 
of the flesh, but of God." 

After a sensible, good man has learned everything 
which is to be learned from ornithology and palaeon- 
tology, then let him correspond with the mind of Christ, 
and he will learn that he is of more value than many 
sparrows, and that he therefore is probably treated in 
more ways than sparrows are, and for more wants than 
they have, by the Maker of both men and sparrows, 
and of all things visible and invisible. 

The laws by which the sphere of nature was rounded, 
and was filled with things animate and inanimate, are 
no evidence as to the susceptibilities and connectioos 
of man as a living soul, within reach of the Spirit, and 
liable to temptation. 

As to the operation of the Spirit on human souls, 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 305 

there is nothing to be argued from the chemistry of the 
body, any more than the law of gravitation can hint as 
to the manner in which the lightning flashes, or the 
electric current darts and strikes. 

As to whether Moses and Elijah could ever have 
been visited by angels, there can rightly be no hint 
expected from rocks and fossils, unless it can first be 
shown that those rocks and fossils, at some time in 
their history, w r ere what angels could have talked with 
by the Divine permission. 

The providence of God, as sparrows can experience 
it, through the laws of nature, cannot be the measure 
of that providence, as it adapts itself to living souls, 
and wraps man about with a care, which death is not 
to end, but only to manifest. And whatever the con- 
nections of man may be through his body with nature 
and seed-time and harvest, it is yet not inconsistent 
with them all, that at one time " man did eat angels' 
food." 

There are Christian divines — blind leaders of the 
blind, surely — who hope to have the miracles of the 
Bible made more credible, by the result of a scientific 
controversy, as to whether creation occurred by de- 
velopment or by stages. But really, whether God made 
the world with his right hand or with his left, though 
a very curious inquiry, cannot possibly be any new 
light as to the way in which he may have treated 
primeval man when " he led him about, he instructed 
him, he kept him as the apple of his eye." 

By his free will, or what feels like it, a man can turn 
and twist himself intellectually, to strange effect, and 
can get himself bewildered by curious fantasies, and 

T 



306 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

can even become like the absurdity of clay upon the 
wheel criticising the mind of the potter. At this 
present time there are hundreds of persons who think 
that, for acuteness, they are intelligences of mysterious 
growth, because they can ask themselves the question, 
" Has God self-consciousness ; or is the Godhead a 
blind force ? " But actually, ability for asking that 
question was attained long ago, and twenty-five hun- 
dred years since was derided by a prophet in a text, 
which combines the subtlest philosophy with the rarest 
wit : " Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker ! 
Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. 
Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What 
makest thou ? or thy work, he hath no hands ? " And 
what is there so like that fancy of ancient prophecy as 
the modern objection ? "A miracle ! God allow a 
miracle ! Does not God live and act by laws ? " And 
to this question the answer is, " Yes, by laws, and even 
also by his Spirit, which is like a combination of all 
laws in one." 

By his senses, which are only four or five, man is 
limited as to his outlook on the universe scientifically, 
as though he perceived it, for its grandeur and circum- 
ference, merely through a loop-hole. And yet, every now 
and then, somebody, who has learned all that he knows 
within seventy years, turns round on the public as an 
observer, to dogmatize in a manner which an archangel 
would never attempt, even among mortals. " An angel ! 
This world is everywhere impervious to his entrance, 
and always must have been. • A miracle ! It is con- 
trary to experience. A spirit appear ! That is im- 
possible, because of the laws of matter, and because of 



MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 307 

surrounding matter, earthy and atmospheric. Science 
is the true light ; and apostles and prophets were not 
scientific persons." As to effect, this is a speech which 
is often made in public, and yet for confidence in self- 
assertion it is what would not become even a seraph, 
and " how much less man, that is a worm, and the son 
of man, which is a worm." 

Goethe was a singular combination of worldly 
shrewdness, scientific perception, and poetic faculty. 
And, considering the manner of man he was, he was 
still more remarkable for what spiritual insight he had. 
Probably there is not a theological speculation of the 
present day, and of scientific origin, with which his 
thoughts were not familiar. And he said, once, what 
may be considered as clenching all the vague, wander- 
ing argument of the present time as to the being of a 
God. And never did he say anything more character- 
istic of himself. It is a verdict on the evidences of 
religion, when estimated at their lowest. 

Argued out from history, and from the make of the 
world, and from human nature, there are certain lines 
of thought which converge at what cannot be anything 
else than a throne, whether thunderbolts be launched 
from it or not, and even though at present there be round 
about it the silence of that state wherein one day is 
" as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 

And very likely it was in rebuke of some scoffers 
that Goethe said what has been referred to, and which 
was this, " If there be not a God now, there will be one 
day." 

Is daring speculation, then, at its best, preclusive of 
the subject of miracles ? It is anything but that. And 



308 MIRACLES AND HUMAN NATURE. 

really from the direction and the depth whence we, 
human beings begin our aspiring path, which is from 
glory to glory, it cannot be otherwise than that our 
ascension should be distinguished and solemnized by 
" signs and wonders." 



MIEACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

THERE is, of course, a science of spirit, as certainly 
as there is of nature. And even if it should be 
thought to be utterly inscrutable by men, it yet must 
exist somewhere \ and no doubt it is well known to 
" Michael the archangel," and to Raphael and the rest 
of " the seven holy angels, which present the prayers 
of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory 
of the Holy One." 

However men may think or despair about it, pneu- 
matology must exist somewhere, as certainly as geology 
does, or astronomy. And why should it be inconceiv- 
able that men should learn it, to that humble extent, 
which immediately concerns mortals ? Science as to 
the soul w r ould not seem to be any more improbable 
of attainment, than formerly science was as to the body, 
and as to those laws by which the body for its wonder- 
ful make is only less wonderful than a spirit itself. 
It is a subject, however, which has been so confused 
and embroiled as scarcely even to be mentionable ; 
though it may yet really, perhaps, be very simple. But 
often simplicity is more bewildering than art. And 
continually, as to spiritual things, it is as it was at 
Chorazin and Capernaum, in the time of Christ, when 
they were revealed unto babes, while kept hid from 
the wise and prudent. 



310 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Pneumatology, as the method by which the universe 
is informed with spirit and divinely governed, is cer- 
tainly an impossible attainment for us " living crea- 
tures " ; nor perhaps will any mere mortal ever fully 
understand that occurrence in the spiritual world of 
which Daniel was told in a vision, by a man with a 
face like lightning, and with a voice like the voice of 
a multitude. " Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel ; 
for from the first day that thou didst set thy heart to 
understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy 
words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But 
the Prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one 
and twenty days : but, lo, Michael, one of the chief 
princes, came to help me ; and I remained there with 
the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee 
understand what shall befall thy people in the latter 
days : for yet the vision is for many days." 

At the time of this vision, and with a view to it, 
Daniel had been abstaining from flesh and wine for 
three weeks. When the vision occurred, the men who 
were present saw nothing, but they felt what made 
them quake and run away. Daniel himself lost all his 
strength, and lay on the ground in what is called a 
deep sleep. But the sleep was a state in which he 
could hear and speak and remember. His body was 
asleep in all its senses, probably ; while his spirit was 
awake, and therefore conscious. For a few minutes, 
perhaps, and by an experience like the beginning of 
death, Daniel was in a state in which he could talk 
with angels, like one of themselves, and see them with 
the eye of his immortal spirit, and hear them with his 
inward spiritual ear. 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 311 

Pneuinatology may not be able at present, to ex- 
plain every word which an angel may have spoken on 
earth, nor to disclose the higher mysteries of the spirit- 
ual world, nor to make us understand what exactly was 
meant as to angelic superintendence, where it was said 
to Daniel in the vision, " I will show thee that which 
is noted in the scripture of truth. And there is none 
that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael, 
your prince." But pneumatology can suggest the man- 
ner by which Daniel was able to talk with " one like 
the appearance of a man " ; and it can adduce classical 
narratives and monastic annals, and medical experience, 
and the facts of animal magnetism, to illustrate from 
the mortal side what that deep sleep was, by which 
there were spirits about him, as he " was by the side 
of the great river, which is Hiddekel." 

The New Testament presupposes the pneumatology 
of the Old Testament ; and there can never be a right 
understanding of the New Testament, until for faculties, 
susceptibilities, and hopes, the human soul is thought 
of, agreeably to that opinion of it, which was held in 
common by Jesus and his first disciples, and along 
with them, by St. Paul, as he wrote his epistles. There 
are Christians who philosophically are materialists, and 
who hold that man is only organized matter, and that 
indeed the word soul, as it is used in the Scriptures, is 
a synonyme for a human body. And there are spirit- 
ualists who are strongly opposed to these materialistic 
Christians ; yet for whom the soul is in the body, but 
like a pip in the core of an apple. Joseph Priestley 
was a materialist ; yet his dogma as to the constitution 
of human nature would include in its sphere all the 



312 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

spiritualism worthy of being mentioned, of more than 
half of his opponents. It is a common experience, and a 
common confession, with laymen of clear, discriminat- 
ing minds, and especially if they have been legally 
trained, that they c3,n read the Scriptures readily and 
well, for all the ends of piety and morals ; but that con- 
tinually at words and points of great interest, percep- 
tion seems to fail them. And that failure is for want 
of pneumatology. 

There is to be read, " The word of the Lord, that came 
unto Hosea, the son of Beeri.' , An intelligent reader, 
with such earnestness as has availed him in commerce, 
or with such courage as has sustained him in deep in- 
vestigations, feels rightly, that it might be a half of the 
worth of the message to know how it came, and was 
apprehended as being divine. A rationalist may tell him 
that the word of the Lord is a figure of speech, and a 
bishop may advise him to trust the words blindly. 
But as a sensible layman, even though unable to see 
any better than his advisers, he will know them both, 
for blind leaders of the blind, certain of falling into 
a ditch. Whereas a man, who knows when it is dark 
about him, and who also believes in light and in its 
coming, will some time, with patience, find himself in 
the porch of that temple of truth, where the Lord is 
the nearer for being called upon ; and wherein are ways 
which are not as the ways of men ; and from the steps 
of which once, " holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost " ; and withinside of which, 
in some coming age, according to the prophets, men 
even yet " shall be all taught of God." 

There is a pneumatology implied in the Scriptures, 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 313 

however latent it may be in this materialistic age ; and 
it is of the utmost importance. What would the epistles 
of Paul be, without the Old Testament being to be 
known of ? And the Old Testament again cannot be 
fully understood apart from the •knowledge which it 
presupposes as to its earliest readers ; and which, in- 
deed, was a pneumatology according to which false 
gods might be actual beings, and as an effect of which 
men were predisposed to believe in the supernatural or 
the spiritually wonderful, rather than to feel, as many 
men boast of themselves, at present, " I would not be- 
lieve it, even if I saw it ; no, not I ! " 

Of this science of the soul, the Catholic Church has 
always had something, while Protestants have never 
held anything definitely and unanimously. And there- 
fore as fronting the Pope, always Protestants have been 
a discordant host. And among them all, in these latter 
days, the most dissonant have been people eminent 
for science, or divines with a predilection for it, and 
who have been persons acted upon in a way, which 
Paul knew of, when " the world by wisdom knew not 
God." 

Science, or information about the ways of God in 
matter, or with bees and elephants, is at the most but 
a mere hint as to the power, and intelligence, and will, 
and intentions of Him who, from outside of nature, and 
from above it all, proclaims as to souls held in it, at 
school, " Behold, all souls are mine : as the soul of the 
father, so also the soul of the son is mine." And un- 
sophisticated souls, as they look upwards, know and 
feel themselves to be endowed and to be distinguished 
by faculties, which worms and fishes, and birds and 
14 



314 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

beasts have not. Men live inside of nature, as it is 
called, as moles and butterflies, and eagles and lions do. 
But there is not a very fool of civilization, nor an ab- 
original savage anywhere, but by the ongoings of his 
thought is evidence as to a Providence higher in order, 
and farther reaching as to its purposes, than what even 
the elephant can be subject to. 

And yet as to what God may be meaning with the 
soul of man, the soul itself is often almost the last, 
witness to be examined. From science, as it anato- 
mizes the human body, theology learns that God is 
wonderful at the adaptation of means to ends : but the- 
ology just at present very seldom asks of pneumatol- 
ogy what the human soul may have been disclosing 
of its nature, adaptation or correspondences. The the- 
ology of the day knows disproportionately much about 
the Dead Sea, and ancient sites, and as to mint, anise, 
and cummin, and tithes in the Holy Land ; but it is at 
fault as to f< the first principles of the oracles of God." 

A man may be of a name, illustrated in many ways, 
and through many generations, and at the battles of 
Bannockburn, and Evesham, and on the field near 
Hastings. But even though also the man could derive 
his descent from an age anterior to the Tower of Babel, 
and even directly from Tubal-cain, what would it all be 
for glory, in comparison with what probably he would 
be disabled from feeling by ancestral pride, and that is, 
the actual height of his descent ! For fleshly parentage 
is but the channel, through which the universe itself 
gives birth to human beings endowed with feelings, by 
which every man is akin to every spirit, in the image 
of God, everywhere, irrespectively of time and solar 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 315 

systems ; and by which also he is blest with faculties, 
which will manifest themselves afresh to all eternity, 
as he passes from world to world, or ascends the 
heavens, one above another. 

The preceding sentiment is worth more than a duke- 
dom to the man who can make it his own. But nearly 
everybody fails of it more or less, and just as the Gos- 
pel is failed of, and merely because of " the lust of the 
eye and the pride of life." 

And the theology of the present day is characterized 
by a similar externality of view. And thus it is that 
pneumatology or the experience of men, as to the soul, 
through thousands of years, is what is utterly unknown 
in many schools of divinity, though actually it may be 
called the grammar of revelation. Also, commonly 
persons read the Bible, being ignorant as to the differ- 
ence between soul and body, and as to what anciently 
was understood and believed, as to spirit. And even 
persons of mental training will talk about the spirit as 
though it were a religious word for the body, and some- 
thing very simple and familiar. And yet some of these 
same persons would be very careful as to thinking 
about an oyster, or how T they gave an opinion about the 
habits and connections of a beetle. 

The degradation of sentiment alluded to above is a 
thing of the last hundred years, and mainly of even the 
last fifty. For, before that time, the word spirit meant 
more, religiously, than it now does ; and it was more 
nearly akin to revelation and miracles than it is now 
thought to be. 

It has already been remarked that the best thinkers 
of the Christian Church have recognized persons of 



316 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

different ages and places as being prophets who were 
neither of the seed of Abraham nor of the Christian 
name. Capacity for prophecy is of human nature ; 
while the inspiration itself may be of extra-natural 
origin. 

Christianity and heathenism were in direct, daily 
controversy, when it was held in the Church, that the 
philosophy of Plato was the long dawn that preceded 
the rise of the sun of righteousness. But how different 
is this opinion from the jealousy of everything spirit- 
ual, outside of the Bible, which is so common with 
Christians to-day ! 

It has often been a great shock to people, when they 
have heard, for the first time, that one or two of the 
moral precepts of Christ had been anticipated by clas- 
sical writers. As though eighteen hundred years ago it 
had been possible for Jesus Christ or for an angel from 
heaven, to have said anything absolutely new as to 
mere morality. And so there have been persons who 
have felt as though Christianity were scandalized be- 
cause Matthew the publican is found not to have 
written as good Greek as Thucydides, the historian of 
the Peloponnesian war, and because the style of St. 
Paul in his epistles is not faultlessly classical. But 
what says Paul himself as to his language ? " Now we 
have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit 
which is of God ; that we might know the things that 
are freely given to us of God. Which things also we 
speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, 
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spirit- 
ual things with spiritual." Why did not Paul pick 
and choose his words for himself ? Because he was not 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 317 

always merely himself, when he wrote, and did not 
wish to be ; and because to an argument, of his own 
apparently, or possibly, he could add, " And I think 
that I have the Spirit of God." 

Some persons suppose that the preceding words are 
merely Paul's Jewish way of hoping that he was a 
good man, and therefore entitled to give advice. Than 
which a more violent misunderstanding of words could 
not well be, if Paul may be interpreted by himself, and 
by the tone and purpose of his epistles, or even by his 
words to Timothy about the world's " sinners, of whom I 
am chief." For these words of Paul, as to his having the 
Spirit, are expressive of a pneumatology, presupposed 
by the Gospel, and in ignorance of which the best lines 
of Paul's writing fail and fade before the eye of the 
reader. For it is as being from over and above him 
that the Spirit is authority for the promises, which are 
made through him, and as to the communion of saints, 
to the sense of which Paul would quicken us, and as to 
the liberty which may be claimed and trusted " where 
the Spirit of the Lord is." 

That the Spirit of God, for inspiration, may operate 
through human receptiveness, irrespectively of nation- 
ality, was an opinion which might well have been held 
by the readers of Paul's epistles, and even by the 
ancient Jews generally. In the book of Joshua, Ba- 
laam is described as having been a soothsayer. And 
yet through him w^as given the grandest prophecy in 
the Old Testament. And the circumstantial detail 
connected with that prophecy is what makes it to be 
its own all-sufficient evidence, for reality, as an histori- 
cal occurrence, with all such persons as have any right 



318 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

to judge about it. Balaam was famous as a soothsayer, 
before the Israelites on their journeying came within 
his sight. Probably he was inspired by the Lord only 
on that one occasion, when he was confronted with the 
Lord's people, with a hostile view. Balak, the king 
of the Moabites, summoned Balaam and said to him, 
" Behold there is a people come out from Egypt : be- 
hold they cover the face of the earth, and they abide 
over against me. Come now, therefore, I pray thee, 
curse me this people, for they are too mighty for me." 
It was Baal against Jehovah. u And it came to pass 
on the morrow, that Balak took Balaam, and brought 
him up into the high places of Baal, that thence he 
might see the utmost part of the people." And prob- 
ably it was because he was conscious of another kind 
of inspiration than what had ever come upon him from 
Baal, that "he went not as at other times to seek for 
enchantments," or artificial means, by which to fit him- 
self for being spiritually possessed. Balaam was an 
Ammonite perhaps, or an Edomite, and he was even on 
one of the high places of Baal, when his spiritual sus- 
ceptibility was used by the Lord for prophecy. 

And if, "when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of 
Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold there 
came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, 
Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for we 
have seen his star in the east, and have come to wor- 
ship him," it could only have been because of their 
nature as Magi, having been wrought upon spiritually 
by the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and 
Moses, David, Isaiah, and Daniel. The star by which 
they were guided would seem to have been visible only 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 319 

to them, and therefore to them only " in the spirit." 
On finding " the young child with Mary his mother/' 
at the end of their long journey, " they presented unto 
him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh." And so 
through that act of theirs was manifested that from 
the best of the Gentiles, as well as with the Jews, " the 
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." 

Plato was for the Greeks what Moses was for the 
Jews, and was a schoolmaster to prepare men for 
Christ. This was a Christian opinion in the early days 
of the Church, and while still Greek meant Gentile. 
In this sentiment, a belief is implied in spiritual sus- 
ceptibility, as being an endowment of the soul. And 
the name of Plato is but the greatest, on a long shining 
list of natural saints. Tor, always and everywhere, 
whether in vile neighborhoods or amidst the splendid 
temples and monuments of paganism, the simple, long- 
ing, unperverted soul does, by its spiritual susceptibil- 
ity, become of itself a temple of the Holy Ghost, and 
an oracle for consultation ; and has in it an odor of 
sweet thoughts like grateful frankincense, and strains 
of sweet music, as though from angelic choirs, high up 
in heaven. 

That the Holy Spirit does not inform men as to 
natural history, nor correct them as to bad logic, is not 
inconsistent with the certainty of its effects as to en- 
lightenment and faith. Gregory Thaumaturgus said 
as to Origen, his master, that he had received from God 
a large share of the greatest of all gifts, that of inter- 
preting the words of God to men, and of understanding 
the things of God, as if God himself were speaking. 
Whatever the special application to Origen may be of 



320 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

these words, they yet illustrate the philosophy of early 
Christian belief. 

Before a man can take, he must have a hand to . open 
and to stretch forth. And for being quickened by the 
Spirit, a man must be, not a statue in marble, but a 
living, suffering, craving soul. And it is only as he 
craves and covets earnestly, that the best gifts can 
either be attracted to him or be received. The gifts of 
the Spirit presuppose spiritual receptiveness. 

And the variety of the gifts of the Spirit, as they 
are enumerated by St. Paul, is presupposed the variety 
of the ways, in which men may be quickened, taught, 
and endowed from above. It is probable that of all the 
myriads of millions of human beings, that there are no 
two souls alike, any more than two faces are. And 
therefore probably with the Spirit, no two souls 
quicken in exactly the same manner, or are endowed 
to precisely the same purpose. The young man through 
it may see visions, and the old man by it may dream 
dreams. One man is helped by it, as to infirmities, 
and another as to prayer. One man abounds in hope 
through the Holy Ghost ; and another man, through the 
Spirit, is encouraged to wait for the hope of righteous- 
ness by faith. By the Spirit of God in his words, one 
man may cast out devils, without knowing of it, while 
another man sheds abroad the love of God. " To one is 
given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom ; to another 
the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit ; to another 
faith, by the same Spirit ; to another the gift of healing, 
by the same Spirit ; to another the working of miracles ; 
to another prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; 
to another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the in- 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 321 

terpretation of tongues ; but all these worketh that one 
and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man several- 
ly as he will" And not only as to manifestation may 
the Spirit differ in different men ; but more broadly 
and more distinctly still, must it differ from one 
age to another, in the Church. And even it may hap- 
pen, that a man may have been so instructed about the 
Spirit, as to think of it mainly for some of its more 
noticeable manifestations, and as being sharpness in the 
sword of the Lord, or inspiration in psalms and high 
thought, or as being a baptism of fire ; and so may fear 
that he may be a stranger to it, while yet himself he is 
actually walking in it. 

And indeed it is as men " walk in the Spirit " that 
chiefly it is blessedness. For the more marvellous 
manifestations of the Spirit, which are the exceptional 
experiences of individuals, are really for the good of 
all; just as Peter argues that " no prophecy of the Scrip- 
ture is of any private interpretation." 

One man in a generation may be so rapt in spirit, 
as almost to have his soul thrill to the joy, which there 
is in heaven, when some fresh word of the Lord is 
evolved; or he may be so sensitive through the Spirit, 
as to have some dim sense of angels on the wing, and 
so appear to have a prophetic instinct as to critical 
events foreordained of God. Or with being lifted up, 
in spirit, and breathing, for an instant, what is more 
than mortal air, a man may have a thought grander 
than the tone of ordinary thinking, and what may 
make him famous among his fellow-mortals. But it is 
scarcely possible for a person to have transcendent 
experiences, without incurring some earthly disruption. 
14* u 



322 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Just as Paul found, after the visions, in which he was 
called and qualified to be an apostle, that there was 
lodged with him a life-long trouble, lest he " should be 
exalted above measure through the abundance of the 
revelations." And a man has found himself become 
like a stranger among his kindred and his acquaint- 
ance simply from having been sublimed by a prayer, 
of agony and faith combined. 

The soul of man is susceptible of the Holy Ghost. 
It is not born with the Spirit, but only with a nature 
fitted for its coming. The apostle Paul asks, " Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " And it may be, that 
it is through the same susceptibility of spirit, that 
one man receives the Holy Ghost, and another man 
" drinketh iniquity like water." As a young man with 
his face in the right direction, Saul had the Spirit of 
God come upon him. Thirty years afterwards, with 
his face set wilfully wrong, "the Spirit of the Lord 
departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord 
troubled him." And probably the same spiritual sus- 
ceptibility, by which he had been receptive of the 
Spirit of the Lord was the channel by which "the 
evil spirit," sent on its errand, got at him. That spirit- 
ual susceptibility, for which perhaps Judas was chosen 
as one of the twelve, and through which perhaps he 
received " power and authority over all devils and to 
cure diseases," was, in all probability, the same sus- 
ceptivity, through which diabolically it was " put into 
the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him." 
Demoniacal possession as the Jews knew of it, and as 
it is known of to-day, in many parts of the world, 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 323 

illustrates human nature, as to its susceptibilities spir- 
itually, and as to its exposure to dangerous, disembodied 
agencies, and invisible forces. But from the Scriptures, 
it might seem, as though in the age of Jesus Christ 
that that spiritual susceptivity, by which the " spirit 
of an unclean devil " could get entrance into the temple 
of a human soul, was actually what, with a better man, 
would have been receptiveness of the Holy Ghost. 
This spiritual susceptibility is by nature ; though one 
man may perhaps have more of it, than another ; just 
as one man is more tender in heart, or poetic in 
thought, than another. But perhaps by prayer and 
other means, it is what a man can get quickened and 
purified for himself, more surely than he can hope 
as to the enlargement of any other faculty of his 
nature. 

Let this susceptibility of spiritual influence be called 
magnetic, if it may thereby seem to be more credible. 
For man is organized magnetism, as certainly as also or- 
ganically, he is flesh and blood. A skeleton is human, 
but senseless. A skeleton properly clothed with flesh 
and blood is a living creature, with adaptations, by which 
it is fitted to a world of earth, air, and water, light, heat, 
and fruits. But as a magnetic man in a magnetic 
world, I am a creature of affinities and possibilities in- 
numerable. Of many and of most of them, I may have 
only a faint and scarcely noticeable experience. But 
whatever anybody has ever felt or seen or known, is 
testimony as to my nature. Also I am alive with 
odyle, and by the odic force I am connected with 
things unknown on the earth and under it. 

For indeed man is not born of flesh and blood 



324 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

merely, nor of two parents simply, but of tlie universe, 
both material and immaterial, and with an aptitude, 
which high angels will respond to hereafter, and with 
a susceptibility as to spiritual influences of various 
kinds, which is none the less real because often it is 
very weak, and because, whether it is seated " in the 
body or out of the body," not every one can tell. 

By means of electricity, it is possible for a person in 
Boston, simultaneously almost, to be connected, as to 
intelligence, with persons, in every city in North 
America, and perhaps in Europe. And that it is pos- 
sible for one mind to act upon another, without any 
intervening agency, and from a long distance, is an 
established fact of pneumatology ; and it has been 
demonstrated artificially, by mesmerism, many hun- 
dreds of times. How often and continually mothers 
are impressed as to critical events concerning their ab- 
sent children ! And how frequently instances occur, 
in which the dying believe that they see spirits, and 
hear unearthly music ! Also how numerous, even 
within the last few years, have been the cases, which 
have been published of strange and irresistible im- 
pulses, which proved afterwards to have been prophetic 
and guardian ! 

When all the varieties of information which exist as 
to the human body are collected, science would seem 
to hint, that possibly in the eyes of an angel, man as a 
mortal may seem like a spirit aglow with all the colors 
of the rainbow, though with just enough materiality 
about him, to keep him at school inside of the walls of 
nature. 

Doubt about miracles as not perhaps being natural 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 325 

to man ! But really even bread is not more so ! Mira- 
cles — those of the Scriptures, and, as being nearer to 
our own times, those of the New Testament especially 
— miracles are true to human nature. But human 
nature is not like the make of a cast-iron machine 
working by rule. 

And indeed we human beings as children of the uni- 
verse, and heirs of God, have in us, by birth, a capacity 
for being born again, and germs also of marvels, which 
will be opening to all eternity. And thus, too, we find 
ourselves endowed with some powers and affinities, 
which appertain especially to a world which is to come; 
but which yet may manifest themselves faintly and 
fitfully through individuals, in this present world, and 
so hint for us all, as by flashes of lightning, that, be- 
cause of the flesh, life at its brightest, is what " now, 
we see as through a glass darkly." 

Such facts as have been supposed to be supernatural, 
of the nature of dreams, apparitions, and strange im- 
pressions and impulses, and which have happened and 
been published, within the last twenty years ; and such 
narratives of a mesmeric character as are to be found 
in the Zoist, — were these things to be gathered, ex- 
amined, and collated, with as much care as has been 
given to the lives and classification of butterflies, and 
with as much acuteness as what caught the lightning 
in its ways, there would result a pneumatology, by 
which the Scriptures would be illuminated for dark- 
ling readers ; and by which men would believe in the 
immortality of the soul, as they never can, until they 
have some understanding about the soul itself, and dis- 
cerningly " have tasted the good word of God, and the 
powers of the world to come." 



326 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

But some persons perhaps will exclaim, " Mesmer- 
ism ! What has that to do with the Scriptures ? A 
thing of the last century ! " It is, however, an old thing. 
And of its connection with the Old Testament, there 
is this to be read. Naaman from Syria had been 
directed, for a cure, as to leprosy, by Elisha the 
prophet, to wash himself in the Jordan, seven times. 
But he w^ould seem to have felt himself aggrieved by 
the simplicity of the remedy. " Naaman was wroth, 
and went away, and said, Behold, I thought he would 
surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name 
of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, 
and recover the leper." That the prophet would move 
his hand up and down, over the diseased part of his 
body, was what was expected by Naaman accord- 
ing to a correct translation of his words. And appar- 
ently it was a mode of healing, which the Syrian knew 
of, before his resort to Elisha. And it is certain, that 
mesmeric practice is to be seen sculptured on ancient 
monuments in Egypt. 

. Mesmerism is not the Gospel, and God be thanked 
that it is not, and that there is come to us " the glori- 
ous gospel of the blessed God." But mesmerism is 
more of a gospel than the doctrine of those who believe 
in spirits and angels, only as pious words in the Bible, 
and who know of Christianitj^, in the letter merely, and 
as though apart from " the everlasting spirit," and who 
fancy that there can be faith in Jesus as the Christ, 
with those who cannot conceive of the possibility of a 
prophet, in the way in which he was thought of, by the 
Jews of the Old Testament. 

It was one of the parables of Jesus, that " The king- 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 327 

dom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman 
took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole 
was leavened." But very unlike the spirit of this para- 
ble, is the mental state of some believers to-day, who 
confess their jealousy of studies, through which any word 
or incident of the Scriptures, might have its apparent 
peculiarity diminished. they of little faith ! Would 
Jesus Christ himself be less important, by having his 
words fulfilled, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that 
belie veth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also ; 
and greater works than these shall he do, because I go 
unto the Father " ? Do the heavens declare the glory 
of God the less, because now more is known of them, 
than what David sung of by inspiration ? Is man's 
make any the less fearfully and wonderfully felt, be- 
cause of the discovery of the circulation of the blood ? 

That some sentences in the Lord's prayer are older 
than Jesus himself has been urged as a fact derogatory 
to Christianity. But it might as well be said in dero- 
gation of Jesus, that he made use of common words as 
well as the common sentiments of his day; and that 
he was furnished with parables by such common ob- 
jects as a mustard-plant, a sower going forth to sow, 
a net that was cast into the sea, and a woman with ten 
pieces of silver. 

There are persons who feel as though ghost-stories 
infringed on the Scriptures, as to the revelation of an- 
other world. And there have been persons who have 
held that there never was any knowledge of a future 
life, till the preaching and the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ. Yet it is plain, from the four Gospels, that 
Jesus did not address men as apes and gorillas, but as 



328 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

believers in a world to come. Jesus did not invent the 
words " spirit " and " soul," " heaven " and " hell;" 
And when he first used them, they were very old 
words, and meant conceptions that were ancient. Ac- 
tually there are theological writers at this present time 
who have less knowledge as to the soul than what was 
taken for granted by Paul with the heathen, and by 
Jesus with the Jews. In the Middle Ages, and in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, theology vindi- 
cated for the service of the Church, facts such as are 
common in the records of animal magnetism. But to- 
day, animal magnetism is commonly the terror of theo- 
logians. Yet men will never be religiously what they 
ought to be, in the light of these latter days, nor be 
Christians with Paul's courage, till it shall be under- 
stood .that pneumatology is a handmaid in the house- 
hold of faith, and not a suspicious vagabond about the 
temple, who will not be driven away. 

" The word which God sent unto the children of 
Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ," is anything 
but what ought to be isolated from science, and from 
the facts of human experience, as they accrue. For, as 
to the earth, it is as true to-day, for eyes that can see, 
as it was in the year when King Uzziah died, and 
when Isaiah saw the seraphim s ; and when " one cried 
unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of 
hosts ; the whole earth is full of his glory ! " 

Fearfulness for the Gospel, as to geology, or animal 
magnetism, or the publication of the Talmud, or as to 
the gates of hell, is utterly uncongenial with " the eter- 
nal Spirit," and inconsistent with any experience of it. 

Who and what, then, is Jesus Christ ? He is " Jesus 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 329 

Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David 
according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of 
God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by 
the resurrection from the dead." But for us in this 
age, individually, what is he ? He " is the Lord from 
heaven " ; he is " a quickening spirit." And the Holy 
Spirit, the Comforter, which comes of him, is what my 
nature has a sense for ; and it is also what my nature 
has groaned for, and travailed in pain, to* have come. 
And this spiritual susceptibility which I have, by crea- 
tion, not only argues my want, but as under God, fore- 
tells also, as to itself, that it will certainly be met from 
above. " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness : for they shall be filled." And to- 
day, as in the first days of the gospel, by God cer- 
tainly "the Holy Ghost is given to them that obey" 
Christ. And therefore through that susceptibility to 
spiritual influence, which is natural to me, by sympa- 
thizing with Christ Jesus as a man, in his heavenward 
' aspirations, I may trustfully expect the Holy Ghost, 
and be certain of it, even though through me, it may 
make no " manifestation " of those special " gifts," which 
though vouchsafed to individuals, yet are for " every 
man to profit withal." 

The Spirit of God may be intimately mine, and so 
as even possibly to be cunning in the hand for work- 
manship, as it was with Bezaleel. It may be like a 
part of myself, and as intimately so, at least, as the 
strength which results from food. But yet it is what 
is separate from me ; and it is what may be quenched 
in me. David prays to God, " Cast me not away from 
thy presence ; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." 



330 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

And Paul writes to the Ephesians, " Grieve not the 
Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the 
day of redemption." And to the Thessalonians he 
writes, " Quench not the Spirit." The Holy Spirit is 
part of me ; it is what I can think by : it is what will 
inform my prayers for me ; it is joy in me, and it is as 
though I myself were it, as long as I myself am right. 
But with vanity or wrong-doing, it fails me, just as his 
strength fails a fainting man. The Holy Spirit was in 
me, like the inspiration of my understanding ; it was 
the life of my higher life ; it was the soul of my better 
soul ; and it was the holiness of my spirit. And sud- 
denly with sin, it is gone ; and my most familiar con- 
nection with heaven is stopped, And though I may 
not have been certain, as to whether I ever did have 
the Spirit, yet with the loss of it by sin, I know well 
what I have been parted from. 

A man may never have it but once ; and indeed he 
cannot have it more than once, with the same effect — 
that strange experience of grieving the Holy Spirit, ' 
with a sense of revelation afterwards. For when the 
Spirit is withdrawn, or fails from a person who has 
been walking in it, his joy stops, and his prayers grow 
dry and unbelieving. And it is like a revelation by 
darkness, what he feels, at finding himself to be left 
to himself, and cut off from heaven, and from that Holy 
Spirit, which, among mortals, is like its outer sphere. 

In all this experience as to the Holy Spirit there is, 
what essentially is meant by the word, miracle, for there 
is the experience of extraordinary, extra-natural, and 
and therefore occasional forces. " Speak, Lord, for thy 
servant heareth," said the child Samuel by the advice 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 331 

of Eli, the prophet, in the dark, in the temple, and be- 
fore he yet knew the word of the Lord. And whatever 
it may be in high heaven, still among us mortals, every 
word and influence not from the Lord only, but from 
withinside of the spiritual world, from any one, is of 
the nature of a miracle. 

Every man is a creature of miraculous possibilities. 
And by comparison with the uniformity of nature, 
there are thousands of human beings, at this day, whose 
lives are of a miraculous character, because of preter- 
natural influences. Miracle ! All human intercourse 
with the world invisible, whether with spirit, or angels, 
or with God Most High, must necessarily flash with 
" signs and wonders," as being itself miraculous. 

In the Iliad of Homer there is the saying, "The 
dream is from Jove.' , And Cicero has the sentiment 
that " Dreams are the natural oracle." Let these two 
quotations represent almost two thousand passages, 
which might easily be cited from ancient authors, as to 
the philosophy and authority of dreams, and as to the 
supernatural communications, of which they have been 
believed to be the channel. But by dreams, of course, 
are not meant mental movements started by an uneasy 
stomach or any other accidental cause, nor even such 
wanderings of the mind in sleep, as idleness can have, 
when much at its ease, and wide awake. The Greeks 
and Eomans knew very well, that dreams have not all 
the same origin. And men like Pausanias, and the 
students of Plato, were little likely to attribute the ab- 
surdities of a crude stomach to a heavenly origin. 

That "dreams are the natural oracle" is a sentiment 
which involves the philosophy of revelation. For, it 



332 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

asserts the existence in man, of a susceptibility to the 
influences of the spiritual world. And that sentiment 
did not originate in any such nonsense about dreams, 
as a modern materialist would suppose, but in experi- 
ences and traditions, as respectable as the names of 
Socrates and Plato, as wise as ancient Greece, and 
broader even than the Eoman empire. 

But here some one will ask, in the special way of the 
modern unbeliever, " If it be true that dreams are the 
natural oracle, why do not I have good dreams ? For 
I am as good as another, certainly." But now it is 
simply for the same reason, as that for which every 
man is not a born archangel, nor even a saint of the 
earth. To justify the sentiment from Cicoro, it is 
enough that one man in a million should have what is 
called " a remarkable dream." Just as one true poet 
in an age is enough for enabling men to feel them- 
selves aright, and to know of a glory in the world, sur- 
passing that of Mammon, and an interest, compared 
with which battles and revolutions are but bubbles. 

In the Scriptures, and especially the more ancient, 
and as though more particularly connected with the 
primitive, unsophisticated nature of man, dreams or vis- 
ions in dreams were not uncommon experiences, whence 
men might infer themselves to be within spiritual 
reach. The sentiment in Cicero as to oracular dreams, 
pagan though it be, coincides with what is said in the 
book of Job by Elihu, " For God speaketh once, yea, 
twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a 
vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, 
in slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears 
of men and sealeth their instruction, that he may with- 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 333 

draw man from his purpose and hide pride from man." 
Spiritual susceptibility during sleep, or capacity for 
visions like dreams while asleep, would seem to have 
constituted a prophet. From the pillar of cloud at 
the door of the tabernacle the Lord said, " Hear now 
my words : If there be a prophet among you, I the 
Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, 
and will speak unto him in a dream." 

But the susceptibility to spiritual influence through 
which a man in his sleep may have had his soul ad- 
dressed by angels or spirits, though it may have been 
a peculiarity with him for its greatness, was yet cer- 
tainly not so for its nature. It is the action of the 
Spirit and that susceptibility which all men have, in a 
greater or less degree, which is referred to in the 
prophecies of Joel. " And ye shall know tKat I am 
in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your 
God, and none else ; and my people shall never be 
ashamed. And it shall come to pass afterward that I 
will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh : and your sons 
and your daughters shall prophesy ; your old men 
shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions : 
and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids 
in those days will I pour out my Spirit." Let there 
be some change which shall refine the flesh of my 
body ; or let me experience all that is meant by being 
born again ; or let my faculties open heavenwards by 
the intensity of my faith ; or let me be within reach 
of some Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit ; and I 
should then know of myself, how it was that " God 
came to Abimelech in a dream by night"; and how 
true were the words of Jacob about himself, " The an- 



334 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

gel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob : 
and I said, Here am I " ; and how it was as natural as 
man talking with man, when Jesus Christ in heaven 
talked with the spirit of Paul, while his body was 
asleep in a house hard by the synagogue in Corinth. 
" Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, 
Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace ; for 
I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt 
thee ; for I have much people in this city." 

The manner in which Paul was waked up in spirit, 
while his body was asleep, is a way which is possible 
with all men, however improbable it may be, that there 
should ever be common experience of it. And it is 
of our nature, that in deep sleep possibly our ears 
might be opened, as Elihu said, and instruction be in- 
fused into us. And when Pharaoh and Nebuchadnez- 
zar were inspired with dreams, which were concurrent 
with Divine Providence, it was through their natural 
susceptibility to spiritual influence, and not through 
such an operation of Almightiness, as would be neces- 
sary for making a statue of Hercules dream and re- 
member. 

The dream was described by Cicero as being a nat- 
ural oracle, in contradistinction to other oracles, which 
were got from gods and demons by various artificial 
means. At Delphi, they were obtained through a 
woman, who was supposed to be entranced by Apollo ; 
at Lebadea, after certain ceremonies of purification, 
the oracle was got in the dark cave of Trophonius, 
sometimes from a voice there, and sometimes by other 
means. In Greece, there was a cave, which Pausanias 
saw by the wayside, in which was a statue with a 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 335 

table before it, and at which oracles were to be ob- 
tained by the throwing of dice. And there was a 
temple in Egypt, at which oracles were got by asking 
questions before a wooden image, which was thought 
to answer by shaking its arms when possessed by a 
demon. 

To all the preceding ways of obtaining oracles the 
Jew would have been opposed. He would have ac- 
knowledged them as being real, probably; but he 
w^ould have repeated to himself the commandment, " I 
am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of 
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou 
shalt have no other gods before me." But the Jew 
would have joined with Cicero, as to his sentiment 
about the dream-faculty, and would have acknowl- 
edged it, for a part of the primitive religion, which 
was before Abraham was. 

As to dreams, which have been vision-like for veracity, 
there is an allowance to be made, according to the doc- 
trine of chances, for cases of mere coincidence. But 
after everything has been said and allowed for, it would 
seem as though in every country there may always 
have been occurring dreams of an extraordinary na- 
ture, enough, fairly considered, to make everybody feel 
himself to be a creature of spiritual faculty, and spirit- 
ually connected. 

But at this point there are persons who would ex- 
claim together, as one man, " Dreams ! and meant seri- 
ously too ! Dreams ! as though there ever could be 
anything in a dream ! It is too ridiculous ! " But is 
Plato then ridiculous ; or is Socrates ? Is Plutarch 
ridiculous ; or are the philosophers and heroes of whom 



336 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

he is the biographer, mostly ridiculous ? Eidicule ! was 
Cicero a subject for it ; or of the two Pliny s, was either 
the elder or the younger ; or was Galen ? And can a 
subject be ridiculous, whereon as to belief, along with 
the foregoing great names, nearly and probably, all the 
Fathers of the Church coincide, from Polycarp to St. 
Augustine ? And whether intended or not, it cannot 
but be a laugh of pitiable inanity, which happens to be 
turned simultaneously against Cardan and Petrarch ; 
against the Emperor Theodosius and the Emperor 
Charles the Eifth of Spain ; against Francis Bacon and 
Halley the astronomer ; against Sir Christopher Wren 
and Sir Eoger L'Estrange ; against Defoe and — 

But enough of this ! For there is no man but must 
feel abashed, when actually he finds himself to be 
lightly laughing in the grand awful face of antiquity, 
and with the fathers, martyrs, and doctors of the Church 
against him. 

But indeed the man, who is the grandchild of the 
last century, and the child of this, is almost necessarily 
a person of contradictory notions. And so it often 
happens that a person will say philosophically what, 
if it were true, would be ruinous of the religious belief, 
which he holds even fervently. And that is, just as 
there have been many divines, who with pleading for 
the Church, have made void the Gospel. 

Nor, should this argument seem to be novel, is it 
therefore necessarily the less trustworthy. For, even 
as to his bodily constitution, man in these latter days 
is continually discovering something new, and by which 
he finds his health, or temporal salvation, to be largely 
dependent on laws, of which Abraham knew nothing, 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 337 

nor Julius Caesar, nor yet Martin Luther. The primary 
facts of life, as connected with his skin and lungs, man 
is but just now learning ; and so it may well be sup- 
posed, that, as connected with his spiritual nature, there 
may be common things, of which the full significance 
has not yet been taken. 

A dream of much particularity which comes true, — 
an oracular dream argues not only that man can have 
dreams which come true, but that he can dream under 
influence, and from spiritual connection of some kind. 
And if one man can dream in that way, so perhaps in 
that way may another be capable of inspiration, even 
while wide awake. That kind of dream, which Cicero 
calls the natural oracle, is presumptive proof as to the 
actuality of revelation, and as to the reality of those 
spiritual faculties in man which Christianity presup- 
poses. 

There have been some eight or ten dreams, which 
have been had and published in this neighborhood, 
during the last twenty years, which, for an earnest 
thinker, would be more valuable than the whole of 
some metaphysical libraries. Because one fact accruing 
from nature is better than all the argument which is 
inconsistent with it, however ingenious and laborious it 
may be. 

What is properly the dream-faculty may be regarded 
as the primitive germ of revelation. It is also a simple 
and good proof that man is spiritually connected ; and 
that therefore also he himself may probably be a spirit. 

Actually and with full consciousness to feel himself 
to be a living soul, by any trial, test, or experience, 
within the range of his own understanding, is the 
15 v 



338 MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 

hunger and thirst of myriads ; though also it is a 
craving, which is as dull as despair itself. And all 
that merely primitive want might for many a man be 
satisfied by a dream, which has been had by some poor 
chastened widow, in his neighborhood, anxious about 
her absent son ; only that theology has got so far away 
from common life, that it would wish to scout the 
smallest possible miracle of the present day, for fear of 
being challenged by science, in the names of uniformity 
and law. But actually, though those words are good 
enough for a lecture-room, they are altogether inade- 
quate for what Christians ought to be ready to main- 
tain in the Church. 

How many persons there are who sit in church, only 
to feel as though the darkness about them were grow- 
ing more visible ! How many men of ability there 
are, who have the gospel sound to them like an un- 
known tongue ! Said the voice which was heard by 
St. John when he was in the Spirit, " He that hath an 
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
churches." But how can he well hear to-day, who 
cannot well conceive how the Spirit could ever have 
spoken ? Persons whose ways of thinking have been 
almost altogether materialized, — how should they un- 
derstand the things of the Spirit ? " The God of the 
spirits of all flesh," — how possibly can they pray to 
him in the fulness of belief, who think that they 
themselves, perhaps, are flesh only ? 

Yet if men were willing to be taught by it, a dream 
which is a dream in Cicero's sense of the word, or in 
that of the Bible, would be enough for any ordinary 
degree of doubt as to the spiritual world. But the 



MIRACLES AND PNEUMATOLOGY. 339 

dread of acknowledging in any way what science 
might perhaps challenge for a miracle and a violation 
of law, is the nightmare of theology at this time. 
However, it is what is nothing more than a nightmare ; 
and it will probably soon be over. 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

THE Scriptures are the history of a particular peo- 
ple, or line and succession of persons, as they 
were acted upon by the Spirit of God. 

When everything was nothing, and while as yet 
darkness was on the face of the deep, it was the begin- 
ning when " the Spirit of God moved upon the face of 
the waters." Also, "by his Spirit he hath garnished the 
heavens." And said the Psalmist, as he sang in view 
of both Lebanon and the sea, " Thou sendest forth thy 
spirit, they are created," — the stork to house herself in 
the fir-tree, the fowls of heaven to sing in the branches, 
the young lions to roar after their prey, the wild asses 
with their instinct for the springs among the hills, grass 
as it grows for the cattle, and herbs for the service of 
man. And not these only, even though along with the 
sea and leviathan ! For also " the Spirit of God hath 
made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given 
me life." 

But there is another and higher sense of the phrase 
"Spirit of God" than that use of it. The Spirit of 
God created man, as it made the elephant, and it 
might have maintained man as man, at a certain uni- 
formity of intelligence and character, just as, for thou- 
sands of years, it has perpetuated nature in elephants. 
As the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God finds in man a 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 341 

susceptibility which the elephant has not. And it is 
this spiritual susceptibility which is the great, grand 
distinction of man. 

Men are the creatures of God, as the elephant and 
the lion are, and as the dove and the provident, skilful 
beaver. But the elephant lives from God more largely 
than the dove ; and man, as a biped with his head 
erect, lives from God more fully than the elephant. 
But the truth as to man is more than that ; for he 
does not merely live and move like a superior elephant, 
but also he has and derives his being like a child of 
God. In the great sphere of life of which God is the 
fulness, man lives in God, and yet in some way as 
though detached from him. And it is through that 
way, and because of it, that man is specially dear to 
God, and of more value than many sparrows ; as being 
not only a creature of instinct, but also a child capable 
of instruction, and a soul susceptible of inspiration.; and 
as being possibly a son, for companionship with him, 
to all eternity, through the Holy Ghost. And the 
Scriptures illustrate this relation, as it exists and al- 
ways has existed between God and man. 

By the gospel, human beings are invited to become 
sons and daughters of the Most High. But often per- 
sons avert their faces from God, and turn and look 
along with the people, as to whom, once Jesus said, 
" Ye are of your father, the devil." And it is only just 
as we believe in its being possible for us to become the 
children of God, that the Bible belongs to us, as a thing 
of any meaning. 

In the Scriptures, the special action of the Spirit of 
God on the soul is called " the word of God." Some- 



342 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

times it is so called, when it is simply a Divine mes- 
sage to an individual ; and sometimes it is so called 
when it is addressed to a nation ; and it is also used 
for that expressiveness of the Divine will, which was 
the act of Creation ; as when Peter writes " that by 
the word of God the heavens were of old, and the 
earth standing out of the water, and in the water." 

" The word of the Lord " is a special completed act 
of " the Spirit of the Lord " ; and always it is inspira- 
tion, as unto the formless, void world for creation ; or 
into the consciousness of a prophet, for a communica- 
tion ; or into the mind of a man, like David, for the 
beauty of a psalm. And in the personality of Jesus, 
the word was so completely incarnated, as that himself 
Jesus became " the word " itself. " And the Word 
was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld 
his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the 
Father), full of grace and truth." 

Sometimes the word of the Lord was a voice in the 
ear of a prophet ; and sometimes it was a picture before 
the eye of his mind ; and sometimes it was the appear- 
ance of an angel. And there are two or three other 
ways, by which the word of the Lord was given, which 
are mentioned in the Old Testament, though obscurely, 
and which perhaps were never commonly used. 

What books have been written and what nonsense 
has been talked about the Jewish theocracy ! It has 
been supposed to have been the government of a priest- 
hood, which is exactly what it was not. And it has 
been supposed to have been mainly and characteristi- 
cally the sacerdotal ministration of a written law, which 
also it was not. Prophets were the theocracy, — men 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 343 

who could even denounce the priesthood, and who were 
not necessarily even Levites. They were men of God, 
and not merely men of the temple of God. 

As was said to the Jews in the wilderness of Sinai, 
" Hear now my words : If there be a prophet among 
you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in 
a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream." But 
then it is added as to Moses, " with him will I speak 
mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark 
speeches." And of how that was, this is an instance. 
In the wilderness, two men appealed to Moses about a 
ceremonial difficulty. "And Moses said unto them, 
Stand still, and I will hear what the Lord will com- 
mand concerning you." And standing still with the 
people about him, under the eastern sky, Moses listened 
for a voice, which nobody else could hear. And that 
voice he heard spiritually. " And the Lord spake unto 
Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, 
If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean 
by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, 
yet he shall keep the passover unto the Lord." Also 
that precept, as being got and given in that manner, 
is an instance of theocracy. 

And now, how were prophets commissioned, or how 
did a man know himself to be a prophet ? David be- 
came a prophet, with being anointed for king ; though 
perhaps his spiritual susceptibility may have been a 
reason for his being chosen as king. He was fetched 
into the house from keeping the sheep. " Now he was 
ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and 
goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint 
him : for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of 



344 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. 
And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that 
day forward." Very different from that is the account 
Jeremiah gives of himself. " The word of the Lord 
came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the 
belly I knew thee ; and before thou earnest forth out 
of the womb I sanctified thee : and I ordained thee a 
prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! 
behold, I cannot speak ; for I am a child. But the 
Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child : for thou 
shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I 
command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their 
faces : for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the 
Lord." And very different again from the call of young 
Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, was the experience of the 
prophet Amos. " Then answered Amos, and said to 
Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's 
son : but I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore 
fruit : and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, 
and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my peo- 
ple Israel." And when Barak received the command- 
ment of the Lord, in connection with a striking episode 
in Jewish history, it was through Deborah. Arid what 
is to be read about her is like a wonderful little pic- 
' ture. " And Deborah a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, 
she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under 
the palm-tree of Deborah, between Bamah and Beth-el 
in Mount Ephraim ; and the children of Israel came 
up to her for judgment." 

And it would seem also that " the word of the Lord " 
found its recipients or prophets, quite irrespectively of 
worldly circumstances. Kings and peasants were alike 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 345 

to it. Solomon was a youthful king when " in Gibeon, 
the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night : 
and God said, Ask what I shall give thee." And it 
was while he was " in all his glory " that " God gave 
Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, 
and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the 
sea-shore." And when the Queen of Sheba, having 
heard of what Solomon had become through " the name 
of the Lord," journeyed to Jerusalem to try his wis- 
dom, she found him surrounded by pomp and grandeur. 
But his magnificence was no bar to the attendant power 
which fed his intellect with wisdom. And as he heard 
questions she asked, answers like miracles rose in his 
mind. " And Solomon told her all her questions : there 
was not anything hid from the king which he told her 
not." At one time Elijah lived by a brook and was 
fed by ravens ; and at another time he was lodged by 
a widow whose mind had been miraculously prepared 
for receiving him. " And when he came to the gate 
of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gath- 
ering of sticks." A priest was always probably far 
above want, because he was always well provided for, 
by his birthright. But for the prophet, there was no 
provision in life, which might be called special ; unless 
indeed that quality might be so called by which na- 
ture answers to nature, and persons who are spirit- 
ually-minded are drawn towards those who are in any 
way like themselves, such as prophets, men of genius x 
and sufferers living by faith. Owing to the kind im- 
pulse of a Jewish lady, there is to be read, what is like 
a sudden distinct glimpse of a prophet moving about. 
" And it fell on a day that Elisha passed to Shunem, 
15* 



346 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

where was a great woman ; and she constrained him to 
eat bread. And so it was, that, as oft as he passed % by, 
he turned in thither to eat bread. And she said unto 
her husband, Behold, now, I perceive that this is a 
holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. 
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall ; 
and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a 
stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be when he 
cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither. And it 
fell on a day that he came thither, and he turned into 
the chamber, and lay there." The prophet was very 
unlike a priest in his mind, and so he was in his ex- 
perience, usually, in one way or another. Says St. 
James, "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have 
spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of 
suffering affliction, and of patience." 

And now what was the position of the prophet so- 
cially ? He had a right to utter himself, but on certain 
conditions, which might involve even his life. Ahab 
the king wanted the word of the Lord from the prophet 
Micaiah ; and was enraged, by what he got ; notwith- 
standing that the prophet had said, "As the Lord 
liveth, what the Lord saith unto me that will I speak." 
Whereupon a false prophet, a prophet of Baal, proba- 
bly, who had been flattering the king along with four 
hundred others, Zedekiah, " went near and smote Mi- 
caiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the 
Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee ? And 
Micaiah said, Behold, thou shalt see in that day, when 
thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself. 
And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and carry 
him back unto Amon the governor of the city, and 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 347 

to Joash the king's son, and say, Thus saith the king, 
Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread 
of affliction, and with water of affliction, until I come 
in peace. And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in 
peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, 
Hearken, people, every one of you." Then the king 
went up to Eamoth-Gilead to battle, and never came 
back ; and the prophet with having his prophecy ful- 
filled, saved his life, according to the law. 

And of what the prophet was among the people, for 
his work, as compared with the priest, there is an illus- 
tration in one of the prophecies of Hosea. The priest 
was the man of ritual, and the prophet was the man of 
the Spirit. * Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee ? 
Judah, what shall I do unto thee ? for your goodness 
is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth 
away. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophet ; 
I have slain them by the w x ords of my mouth : and 
thy judgments were as the light that goeth forth. For 
I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the knowledge 
of God more than burnt-offerings." And as Christian- 
ity becomes, as certainly more and more it will become, 
a ministration of the Spirit, it w T ill be well to remem- 
ber and know thoroughly, that the Holy Ghost may 
probably get itself uttered, not so much through func- 
tionaries of the Church, as through those whom the 
Spirit, for any reason, may find to be approachable ; and 
who perhaps may often seem to be but mere earthen 
vessels, when compared with honored and honorable 
personages, arrayed, it may be, in official robes, and in- 
vested with the privileges of high places. 

But now how was the prophet received ? Exactly 



348 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

as conscience is received to-day ; and those who did not 
want to know of him could ignore him. And those 
persons, who were actually reached by his words, could 
do with God in his words, just as they were* in the 
habit of doing v/ith God in the suggestions of their 
own consciences ; they could exclude him, in some 
way, or else elude him. There had been the grossest 
wickedness ; and with an impulse from the Lord, " Na- 
than said to David, Thou art the man." And being 
charged thus and threatened, " David said unto Nathan, 
I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said 
unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin ; thou 
shalt not die." 

But David was a man of conscience, as well as pas- 
sion. Two or three hundred years after him there was 
a prophet, who did not get even from a priest that ac- 
knowledgment of his character which David would 
have left his throne to yield. Amos, the prophet, had 
terrible truths to utter. But it was not precisely so ; 
for Amos himself actually had nothing whatever to 
say, as being simply a man of the country, and spe- 
cially of sheepfolds and sycamore-trees. But it hap- 
pened to him that he became at a particular time the 
mouth-piece of the Lord, because, as he said, the Spirit 
of the Lord took him. And, at Bethel, he had visions, 
which he told of, as of the Lord, in awful action among 
men. But Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, was thereby 
greatly scandalized, as indeed well he might have been, 
as a chaplain to royalty. "Also Amaziah said unto 
Amos, thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land 
of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there : 
but prophesy not at Beth-el, for it is the king's chapel, 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 349 

and it is the king's court." The way of this priest of 
the court held good for eight hundred years, so as that 
when there was a great excitement about John the 
Baptist, in speaking to the people, Jesus said, " Behold, 
they which are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, 
are in king's courts. But what went ye out for to see ? 
A prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, and much more 
than a prophet." But even though the Baptist was 
worthy of this testimonial, and w 7 as " more than a 
prophet," yet not only was his life' apart from the 
court, but even it was passed outside of the region of 
respectability. And also said Stephen to the bigots 
about him, just before he was stoned to death, " Ye do 
always resist the Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, so 
do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers 
persecuted ? " But about the prophets, complaint was 
not always of persecution, but sometimes of something 
else, as bad or worse perhaps than that. Ezekiel, man 
of wonder and fire and vision, — prophet and man of 
God ! How was Ezekiel treated ? He was treated in 
his own land, just probably as he would be to-day in 
Boston or Washington. For proportionately there are 
no more people with a true ear for prophecy, to-day, 
than there were anciently in the worst of times. And 
in what follows, let it be noticed that the audience 
wxre people of what may be called literary taste. 
"Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people 
still are talking against thee by the walls, and in the 
doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every 
one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear 
what is the word that cometh from the Lord. And 
they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they 



350 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, 
but they will not do them : for with their mouth they 
show much love, but their heart goeth after their 
covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very 
lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can 
play well on an instrument.' , The Spirit of the Lord 
might speak, and actually the style only of the words 
be noticed ! 

And furthermore the prophet was the prophet of 
the Lord, and not of Baal or any other heathen god. 
The prophetic was a natural susceptibility, through 
which a man might be a channel either for the word 
of the Lord or for the influence of Baal. And indeed 
Balaam was up at the high place of Baal with his 
mind and will against the Israelites, when words not 
of his own thinking passed from his mouth : and it 
was because " the Lord met Balaam and put a word in 
his mouth. ,, On finding himself overmastered, Balaam 
yielded, and " the Spirit of God came upon him " : and 
the grandeur of his prophecy was because of his be- 
ing a man " which heard the words of God, which saw 
the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but 
having his eyes open." It was through the prophet 
that the Spirit had its utterance against those who 
succumbed to the vile seductions of heathenism. 

The Lord said to Moses that sacrifices should be of- 
fered only at the door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
gation : " and they shall no more offer their sacrifices 
unto devils." For indeed it had been only a little 
while before that " they sacrificed unto devils, not to 
God : to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that 
came newly up, whom your fathers feared not." And 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 351 

the Scriptures of the Old Testament are largely the 
history of the Spirit of God, as to its conflict with the 
devils, and altars, and prophets, and villanies of heath- 
enism. 

As soon almost as the Israelites of the desert had all 
of them been buried in the land of promise, "the 
children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, 
and served Baalim. And they forsook the Lord God 
of their fathers, which brought them out of the land 
of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the 
people that were round about them, and bowed them- 
selves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. 
And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ash- 
taroth." It was eight hundred years later than that, 
that through the prophet Jeremiah the Spirit com- 
plained of the persistent rebelliousness of the Jews. 
And in this passage, let it be noticed, that a prophet 
was a man of prophetic susceptibility, who could let 
himself even prophesy from Baal. " The priests said 
not, Where is the Lord ? and they that handle the law 
knew me not : the pastors also transgressed against 
me, and the prophets also prophesied by Baal, and 
walked after things that do not profit." And it was 
not till after the Babylonish captivity that the Jews 
became safe from idolatry, and able to believe and glo- 
ry in the proclamation, " Hear, Israel : the Lord our 
God is one Lord." 

Five hundred years had the Jews been in Palestine, 
and the adventures of Samson had become an ancient 
history, and Eli and Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon 
had been successively gathered to their fathers, when 
Jeroboam " ordained him priests for the high places,. 



352 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

and for the devils." And what follows was still eighty- 
years later than the age of Jeroboam. " And Ahaziah 
fell down through a lattice in his ripper chamber, that 
was in Samaria, and was sick : and he sent messengers 
and said unto them, Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the 
god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease. 
But the angel of the Lord said to Elisha, the Tishbite, 
Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Sa- 
maria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is 
not a God in Israel that ye go to inquire of Baal- 
zebub, the god of Ekron ? Now, therefore, thus saith 
the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on 
which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And 
Elijah departed." The messengers thereupon returned 
to the king. " And he said unto them, What manner 
of man was he which came up to meet you, and told 
you these words ? And they answered him, He was a 
hairy man, and girt w T ith a girdle of leather about his 
loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite." 

It was just about the time of the preceding incident 
that there happened what marks the heathen notion 
of the Jewish theocracy. " And the prophet came to 
the King of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen 
thyself, and mark and see what thou doest : for at the 
return of the year the King of Syria will come up 
against thee. And the servants of the King of Syria 
said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore 
they were stronger than we : but let us fight against 
them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than 
they." Three hundred years later even than the period 
just mentioned, and just before the captivity, the 
Spirit spoke through Jeremiah and said, " Seest thou 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 353 

not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the 
streets of Jerusalem ? The children gather wood, and 
the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their 
dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to 
pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may 
provoke me to anger." But what was threatened 
through Moses was close upon them, and though it 
was predicted as being imminent, it was not believed. 
" I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them 
in the day that I brought them out of the land of 
Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices : but 
this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, 
and I will be your God and ye shall be my people : 
and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded 
you, that it may be well unto you." Also says the 
voice, which they had not obeyed, " Since the day that 
your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto 
this day, I have even sent unto you all my servants the 
prophets, daily rising up early and sending them : yet 
they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, 
but hardened their neck : they did worse than their 
fathers." 

During the eight or nine centuries, of which the 
last lines were a retrospect, there were many more 
prophets than are known of now. And of some 
prophets, the experiences were once extant as books, 
of which now only the titles survive. In connection 
with Solomon alone there were three books of prophets, 
which are lost ; as is evident from a passage in the 
Second Book of the Chronicles. " Now the rest of the 
acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in 
the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy 



354 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

of Abijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the 
seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat ? " 

Prophets may have been numerous or few in dif- 
ferent ages. At one time there may have been " no 
open vision," and at another time, for some cause, the 
prophets may have " become wind." And it might 
also often have been perhaps that individuals may 
have failed of getting their inquiries of the Lord 
answered ; as Saul failed, just before he applied to the 
woman at Endor. " When Saul inquired of the Lord, 
the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by 
vision nor by prophets." But it would seem as though 
always " the Spirit of God — the word of the Lord " 
— the voice had been more or less near and ready for 
communication, through angel or prophet, vision or 
dream, or some other authorized oracle, from Abraham 
to the captivity. 

According to the Book of Judges, during a space of 
a hundred years, apparently there was no experience 
of a vision, by any one ; but there was a wonderful 
experience as to angels at two or three critical seasons. 
Gideon saw an angel of the Lord, face to face, and 
talked with him, and had from him one sign and 
another. And his experience illustrates the Divine 
action, and the manner in which one man can be 
reached in one way, and another man in another way, 
and even the same man by means, both direct and 
circuitous. Gideon had been addressed and commis- 
sioned by an angel, and had had the Spirit of the Lord 
come upon him : and yet it was by a dream, which one 
man had in the camp, and another man interpreted, 
that he learned that the hour had come for him and 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 355 

the Spirit, and for " the sword of the Lord and of 
Gideon." There may be various ways, through which 
the souls of men may be affected, as to their spiritual 
susceptibility. An age of fierce excitement from bat- 
tle, and an age of long-continued, contented quiet 
must necessarily differ as to what manifestations they 
may be ready for, from the Spirit. The age of Samson 
or that of Jephthah was not likely to have had the 
visions of Ezekiel disclosed to it. And whenever 
people were secretly longing for the licentiousness of 
Baal, they could hardly have been approachable by the 
Spirit of the Lord, in any other way than through an 
indignant prophet. 

It was a belief with the Jews that fasting or a 
simple diet might end in fitting a man for spiritual ex- 
periences. And even a prophet would sometimes try 
to prepare himself for the Spirit by the soothing effect 
of music. And so experiences from the Spirit of 
God may w T ell be supposed to have been affected by 
the varying spirit of the centuries. Also, prophets 
open to the Spirit of the Lord, evidently had that 
Spirit affect them, according even to their state by 
education. The prophecies of Amos have an odor of 
the country, which is sensible to everybody : and the 
prophecies of Jeremiah are uttered in imagery, with 
which he was furnished by his personal experience. 
And similarly, the epistles of Paul are the penmanship 
of a man whose learning had been gained at the feet 
of Gamaliel, but whose enlightenment had been on a 
journey to Damascus, from a vision of Christ in glory. 
And thus it may have been, as between mortals and 
the world immortal, that at one time, influence from 



356 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

above may chiefly have been by dreams and visions, 
and at another time, through angels, and at still another 
time, through prophets, more or less entranced. 

But besides the preceding, there were ways of ob- 
taining oracles from the Lord, of which but little is 
known, and which may have answered, only perhaps 
at intervals, such as Teraphim, and Urim, and Thum- 
mim, and casting of lots. 

And now through these various agencies, with what 
results were men affected by the Spirit of God ? There 
would seem then to have been scarcely anything hu- 
man, on which " the word of the Lord " might not have 
been had. And it would seem to have been obtained 
much more commonly than might, at first, be thought. 
Eebekah, the wife of Isaac, when she was about to be- 
come a mother, " went to inquire of the Lord "as to 
her condition, and was answered by a strange and won- 
derful prophecy. It is the only occasion recorded, but 
it cannot probably have been the only time in her life 
of her inquiring of the Lord. It is only incidentally 
that it appears what a place of resort the house of a 
prophet may have been sometimes, and on what merely 
personal matters he may have been approached. " And 
when they were come to the land of Zuph, Saul said 
to his servant that was with him, Come and let us re- 
turn, lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take 
thought for us. And he said unto him, Behold now, 
there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honor- 
able man ; all that he saith cometh surely to pass ; 
now, let us go thither ; peradventure he can show us 
our way that we should go." And it was only by an 
accident, that the fame of Elisha as a healer is known 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 357 

to-day. The Syrians had gone out by companies, and 
had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a 
little maid ; and she waited on Naaman's wife. " And 
she said unto her mistress, Would God my Lord were 
with the prophet that is in Samaria ! for he would re- 
cover him of his leprosy." And only in the same inci- 
dental manner is the wide reach of his spiritual hear- 
ing or information told of. During a war with the 
Israelites, the King of Syria was troubled at the discov- 
ery of his plans and secrets, and thought that among 
his servants there must certainly be some traitor. " And 
one of his servants said, None, my Lord, King ; but 
Elisha the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the King of 
Israel the words 'that thou speakest in thy chamber." 

In art, in architecture, and in poetry also, the Spirit 
was inspiration. For work in the tabernacle "the 
Lord spake unto Moses, saying, See I have called by 
name Bezaleel, the son of Uri,- the son of Hur, of the 
tribe of Judah ; and I have filled him with the Spirit 
of God, in wisdom, and in understanding and in knowl- 
edge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise 
cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in 
brass." David wished to build a house for the Lord ; 
but he was forbidden by the Lord, because of his hav- 
ing been a man of bloodshed and war. But he was al- 
lowed to make preparations for it, for his son Solomon 
to make use of. Gold and silver, and iron and timber, 
David made ready. And along with all this material, 
he delivered to Solomon building-plans, of which the 
account is very noticeable. " Then David gave to Solo- 
mon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses 
thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper 



358 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

chambers thereof, and of the inner parlors thereof, and 
of the place of the mercy-seat, and the pattern of all 
that he had "by the spirit, of the courts of the house of 
the Lord, and of all the chambers round about, of the 
treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries of 
the dedicated things.' , And still more explicitly as to 
the plans and patterns, and the way in which he had 
obtained them, " All this, said David, the Lord made 
me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even 
all the works of this pattern." And as to that poetry, 
in which men have gloried and worshipped so long, 
" Now these be the last words of David. David the 
son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up 
on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the 
sweet psalmist of Israel said, The Spirit of the Lord 
spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." 

For war also, the aid of the Spirit was promised to 
the peculiar people. And on going to battle, the priest 
was to exhort the people and to tell them " The Lord 
your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you 
against your enemies, to save you." On one occasion, 
we read that the Lord said to Moses, " Say unto them, 
Go not up, neither fight, for I am not among you : lest 
ye be smitten before your enemies." And on another 
occasion it is to be read, " And, behold, there came a 
prophet unto Ahab, King of Israel, saying, Thus saith 
the Lord, Hast thou seen all this great multitude ? be- 
hold I will deliver it into thy hand, this day : and 
thou shalt know that I am the Lord." And then the 
prophet directed him as to his battle array. Samaria 
was besieged and at the worst extremity from famine. 
Elisha sat in the house and the elders with him. The 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 359 

king had just lost his faith, and was abjuring the Lord : 
and a messenger was on his way for the head of the 
prophet. " Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the 
Lord : Thus saith the Lord, to-morrow, about this time, 
shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and 
two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of 
Samaria/' And so it happened, because the Syrians 
deserted their camp. "For the Lord had made the 
host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and 
a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host : and 
they said to one another, Lo, the King of Israel hath 
hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the 
kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. Wherefore - 
they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, 
and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it 
was, and fled for their life." 

In a psalm, which is like his autobiography set to 
music, David says of the Lord, " He teacheth my hands 
to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms." 
And by these words, doubtless, he meant something 
of what Jephthah felt, when " the Spirit of the Lord 
came upon him," and like what Samson experienced, 
when " the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at 
times in the camp of Dan." 

Also, the Spirit, for the Jews, was as a judge. One 
day, Moses sat in judgment among the people, from the 
morning to the evening. " And Moses said unto his 
father-in-law, Because the people come unto me to in- 
quire of God : when they have a matter, they come 
unto me ; and I judge between one and another : and I 
do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws." 
Moses needed as a judge to have a successor. Joshua 



360 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

was appointed as being a man in whom was the Spirit. 
And now how was he to judge, how was* he to be 
guided and directed as to his judgments ? " He shall 
stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel 
for him, after the judgment of Urim before the Lord." 
And indeed this judgment from God became an institu- 
tion, to which appeal was made in difficult cases of the 
highest importance. " Then shalt thou arise and get 
thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall 
choose ; and thou shalt come unto the priests, the Le- 
vites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, 
and inquire ; and they shall shew thee the sentence 
of judgment." And refusal to submit to the sentence 
thus rendered was a capital offence ; on which judg- 
ment was to be executed. " And all the people shall 
hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously." 

Also over the Israelites, the Spirit of the Lord was 
king ; though commonly the subjects were in rebellion 
against it, in much the same way, and with much the 
same results, as at the present time, when men rebel 
against God, and equivocate with him, and hide them- 
selves from him, as he looks in upon them, and talks 
with them through their consciences. The Spirit was 
King of kings, after the Israelites, by asking for a king 
to be set over them, had Saul and his successors ; and 
after it had been said at the inauguration of Saul, 7 Ye 
have this day rejected your God, who himself saved 
you out of all your adversities and your tribulations, 
and ye have said unto him, Nay, but set a king over 
us." Saul was chosen by the Spirit of the Lord, and 
so was David. And even than in those instances, a still 
more striking intervention of the Spirit was in connec- 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 361 

tion with Jehu. It began with Elijah at the end of 
his wonderful experience at the cave of Horeb. " And 
the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the 
wilderness of Damascus ; and when thou comest, 
anoint Hazael to be king over Syria : and Jehu the son 
of Mmshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel : 
and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, shalt 
thou anoint to be prophet in thy room." Years passed 
on. " And Elisha the prophet called one of the chil- 
dren of the prophets, and said unto him, Gird up thy 
loins, and take this box of oil in thy hand, and go to 
Ramoth-gilead : and when thou comest thither, look 
out Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Mmshi, 
and go in, and make him arise up from among his 
brethren, and carry him to an inner chamber: then 
take the box of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, 
Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over 
Israel. Then open the door, and flee, and tarry not." 
After this was done, the first thing said to Jehu was, 
" Is all well ; wherefore came this mad fellow to thee ? " 
But the end of it was that Jehu became king, and 
the instrument and object of the fulfilment of other 
prophecies. 

The Spirit of the Lord intervened as to the election 
and dethronement of kings, and with advice and com- 
mands, as to foreign powers ; and also, apparently it 
was accessible to the petitions of the humblest inquirer. 
Sometimes " the word of the Lord came " to a prophet, 
wherever he might happen to be, and started him off, 
with a sudden message, beginning, "Thus saith the 
Lord," to be delivered in a market-place perhaps, or at 
a palace. And sometimes it would be as thus : King 
16 



362 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

Jehoshaphat and Jehoram, the idolatrous King of Israel, 
were in trouble together. " But Jehoshaphat said, Is 
there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may in- 
quire of the Lord by him ? And one of the King of 
Israel's servants answered and said, There is Elisha 
the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands 
of Elijah, And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the 
Lord is with him. So the King of Israel, and Jehosh- 
aphat, and the King of Edom went down to him. And 
Elisha said unto the Elng of Israel, "What have I to do 
with thee ? Get thee to the prophets of thy father, 
and to the prophets of thy mother." 

And now, how was it with Elisha at that moment ? 
He was very likely affected in some such manner as 
Stephen was. He certainly had not needed to take 
thought beforehand what he should say. Nor could 
there have been any resisting of the wisdom and spirit 
which he spoke with. % And not improbably because of 
the Spirit, his face may have shone like the face of an 
angel. 

Sometimes the Spirit of the Lord expressed itself 
through a visible angel ; as Zechariah writes was his 
experience. "And the angel that talked with me 
came again and waked me, as a man that is wakened 
out of his sleep, and said unto me, What seest thou ? " 
And sometimes the Spirit was " the word of the Lord " 
in human words, which could, at first for the sound of 
them, even be taken for the voice of a man. Of this 
the experience of Samuel was an instance, before he yet 
knew the word of the Lord. In the night, hearing 
himself called by name, once and again, he answered 
Eli, and went to him. And at the third time of his 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 363 

answering so, " Eli perceived that the Lord had called 
the child." The Spirit of the Lord spoke through Jere- 
miah, when he was but a child ; and through Elijah, 
a hairy man girt with a girdle, it confronted Amaziah 
the king ; of whom it is written, " So he died, accord- 
ing to the word of the Lord, which Elijah had spoken." 

Not only was Jehovah the Lord God of their wor- 
ship, for the Jews, anciently, but also he was their 
king, the commander-in-chief of their armies, their su- 
preme Judge, and was also amongst them inspiration 
from the highest, as to art and poetry. But indeed 
against him as king, and perhaps against his influence 
in all other ways, they were almost continually in re- 
bellion. At the first thought of it, it seems incredible 
that a nation, or even an individual, could possibly 
rebel against Jehovah as a king. And for this seeming 
improbability men have doubted the Old Testament, 
as a history ; while actually they themselves, more or 
less, every day, were rebelling against God, and pre- 
varicating with him, in the chamber of conscience, just 
as the Jews did with God as connected with their 
temple. 

The Old Testament is the history of the Spirit of the 
Lord, as a fountain-head of influence for men, and su- 
premacy over human rebellion and helplessness. That 
Spirit, Saul might have, and might have it withdrawn, 
and Solomon might have and lose it with his becoming 
foolish. The Israelites, as its subjects, might be faith- 
ful, or be apostates to Baal ; or in their fear of Syria, 
they might look to Egypt for help. But whether they 
were dutiful or rebellious ; whether they were judged 
by Deborah the prophetess, or lived prosperously under 



364 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

King Solomon, or were captives by the river of Baby- 
lon, there was over them always the supremacy of the 
Spirit, as it vindicated itself by judgments, and fulfilled 
upon them the prophecies of its own inspiring, and got 
itself as to its ends, praised by even the wrath of man. 

Jehoram might reign in Samaria, and Jehoshaphat be 
King of Judah, and Mesha might be King of Moab and 
be also a great sheep-master ; and the King of Syria 
might war against Israel, and compass Dothan with his 
army ; but it was the Spirit, as it spoke from Elisha, 
which was the ruler of events. From the prophecies 
of Balaam to those of Malachi are a thousand years, 
but all through, it was from the selfsame Spirit, that 
the judges judged divinely, and the seers had visions, 
and the prophets prophesied, and the psalmist sang 
sweetly. " But the word of the Lord was unto them, 
precept upon precept, precept upon precept ; line upon 
line, line upon line ; here a little and there a little.'' 
And by inheritance in Christ, that word in its devel- 
opment is ours. 

And here there are persons, who will be ready to 
exclaim with one voice, " The Old Testament ! The 
miracles of the Old Testament ! Does the man know 
what he is writing about ? Does not he know even 
about the Book of Genesis ? Does he not know of what 
Ezra the scribe has been suspected of having done ? 
Does he not know what is as good as certain about the 
Book of Daniel ? Baur and De Wette, — has he never 
even heard of their names ; Does he not know about ' 
the earlier Isaiah and the later ? Does he not know 
what has been done with the Old Testament so ad- 
mirably and so thoroughly, by criticism, that is to say, 
by theology ? 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 365 

Truly, the writer is humbly aware of all that. But 
he thinks also that as to the study of the Scriptures, an 
instinct for the Spirit is quite as important as mere 
lexicology. " Oh, oh ! " they exclaim again, " but do you 
believe in the tower of Babel, and in the whale that 
swallowed Jonah ? Do you believe that ever the sun 
stood still upon Gibeon ? And if you do not believe 
in those things, what right have you to believe in other 
things of the same kind ? " Perhaps my believing fac- 
ulty may not be very large ; but would that be a good 
reason for my wishing to have none at all. Because 
my eyes will not reach the Pyramids, ought I there- 
fore to shut them, as I walk about the streets of Bos- 
ton ? A real believer is a man who believes intelli- 
gently and not indiscriminately. And now as to the 
sun standing still, — have my opponents never heard 
of figures of speech : and though they often say that it 
does, yet is there even one of them, who believes that 
ever the sun does actually rise ? And as to Jonah, — 
is there one of all my opponents who can inform a 
good Hebraist as to the origin and undoubted meaning 
of the word which is translated whale ? And as to the 
tower of Babel, has it never occurred to them, as it does 
occur to me, that perhaps some time that tower will be 
regarded as having been singularly monumental in hu- 
man history ; and that the confusion of tongues may 
perhaps come, on good reasons, to be accounted as evi- 
dence of some great psychical change in human nature, 
analogous perhaps, in the infancy of the race, to the 
change which takes place with a child, when instinct 
begins to yield to the growth of reason. 

As derived by creation from the Godhead in its 



366 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

unity, it might be expected that religiously and spirit- 
ually there would be analogies which might corre- 
spond with the world geologically. And in the early 
part of the Book of Genesis there are what seem like 
hints of such things. Whether regarded as literal or 
as symbolical, the narrative as to Adam and Eve and 
Paradise means something. There is a curious mention 
of the time concurrently with the birth of Enos, when 
" men began to call upon the name of the Lord," which 
would seem to mark some change with man, rather than 
simply his having begun to ejaculate devotional words. 
" And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive 
with man, for that he also is flesh ; yet his days shall 
be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in 
the earth in those days ; and also after that, when the 
sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and 
they bare children to them ; the same became mighty 
men, which were of old, men of renown." What this 
may mean there is no knowing, at present. But it 
will probably some time dawn on some mind, and be- 
come apparent, and be like the deciphering of some 
primeval inscription. 

Is it not in analogy ; is it not in recognition of that 
great law of progress, attendant on the earth's creation, 
to suppose that its human inhabitants have been under 
a similar dispensation of advancement by convulsion, 
and thereby also under a corresponding law as to spirit- 
ual assistance ? Jesus was a communication of God, 
after another manner than Moses was : and so was 
Moses after another manner than what Abraham knew 
of. And the terrible miracles from which the Egyp- 
tians suffered, and of the like of which there was some 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 367 

manifestation in the time of Elijah, when the Israelites 
were succumbing to the devil-worship of their neigh- 
bors, — these would seem to have been in some kind 
of keeping with the convulsive forces by which the 
earth was rounded and enriched, and made ready for 
men. 

The philosophy of the phrase, "the word of the 
Lord," is spiritually as much in advance of mere ra- 
tionalism as a rationalist himself is in advance of an 
elephant. What calls itself rationalism, walks and 
talks by a lamp, which it does not know, has a hundred 
slides, of two or three of which there is some experi- 
ence with a few persons, even in this life. One man 
discerns acutely as to things within his vision, while 
yet he is blind to things which to another man of in- 
ferior acuteness are very plain, because of his seeing 
by a lamp with another slide. What ! shall we go on 
to all eternity, seeing just as we now see ? But truly 
we are already in germ what we shall be to all eter- 
nity. And the germinating principle is already active 
in us ; and in some persons it is more developed than 
it is in others, as may very credibly be supposed for 
many reasons. 

Most men have eyes only for material objects, but 
some men have had eyes for angels, and for seeing in 
vision. And at this present time there are persons 
who see spirits occasionally, as always there have been 
such. Spiritual sight is an attribute of all persons, 
though commonly it exists only as against the world 
to come. There is the understanding of the natural 
man ; and there is also a spiritual understanding : and 
a man may have the one actively, while of the other 



368 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

lie may never have had the least opening. To the 
merely natural man, miracles, and angels, and spirits 
are necessarily incredible. 

The different look, which the Scriptures may have 
to two persons of the same intelligence is to be ac- 
counted for, very often, by a difference between them 
as to spiritual condition, not moral nor religious, but 
simply psychical. There are persons who cannot pos- 
sibly believe the Scriptures, nor love them, and who 
never will, until they shall have been baptized in the 
sea of affliction, and so have had their souls waked up. 

" Oh, oh ! but what would that have to do with criti- 
cism ? " Much and justly. Because, for lexicology the 
Spirit has no meaning but only words : and science is 
no more a judge as to miracles than it is as to the 
chronology of the Amorites. The appeal of the Scrip- 
tures as to credibility, is not to the science of either 
words or matter, but to the soul of man, learned with 
all possible learning, and alive through all its faculties. 

The Old Testament is its own evidence as to author- 
ity, to all persons competent to judge about it, and 
who also believe in the unity of God, and are well in- 
formed as. to ancient nations, and as to the religions of 
primitive tribes and peoples, outside of Christian civil- 
ization. For the Old Testament is the history of the 
manner in which that happened which is the greatest 
miracle, of which it has to tell, and by which a whole 
nation, man, woman, and child, priest, rabbi, and fish- 
erman, became intelligent, persistent, enthusiastic, de- 
voted believers in that doctrine as to the unity of God, 
of which it has been the distinction of Plato, that he 
caught a glimpse of it, as of some distant starry truth. 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD 



-J 



TESTAMENT. 



It has been a common confident objection to the 
credibility of the Old Testament, that it recognizes 
necromancy as a real thing. And the account of the 
woman of Endor has been reckoned sufficient to vi- 
tiate the whole history of the Old Testament. But 
that strange narrative, by every word with which it is 
worded, authenticates itself to-day, for those who are 
willing to learn. From Spiritualistic experiences, at 
the present time, any one can learn, that the Scriptures 
were written about realities, when they mention Baal 
and Baalim, and the God of Ekron, and divination by 
unclean spirits. Nor am I to be deterred from this 
position, by being asked whether I will support the 
Bible by reasons drawn from hell. For do not most 
men believe that even their respective churches are so 
supported ? Baal and his crew, however, are not the 
only spiritual agencies in the Old Testament, which 
are made certain by Spiritualism ; but even if they 
were, they would be enough for our present purpose, 
with a little thinking. Hell and its ways are exactly 
the opposite of heaven and those ways which lead up 
to it. Always there is good reasoning from the ob- 
verse. And if I am made certain as to the devils, 
who got themselves worshipped anciently, then also as 
a thinking creature, I am assisted as to my belief about 
the prophets of the Lord, and about ministering angels, 
and the angels that encamp about the righteous. And 
so it is, to-day, that a man can affirm of his own 
knowledge, that the scriptures of the Old Testament 
are true to the facts and powers of the spiritual uni- 
verse. 

There are persons, who profess to be theologians, 
16* x 



370 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

who are light and derisive as to the Old Testament, 
and who obstinately and contemptuously harden them- 
selves in their blind leadership of people, by ignoring 
what might be learned from Eastern travellers, and 
from the long-continued experiences of the Catholic 
Church. But the theology which cannot eagerly ap- 
propriate facts, instead of eschewing them, is no the- 
ology at all. 

The Old Testament authenticates itself for all those 
persons, who have a sense for the perspective of his- 
tory, good for the length of fourteen hundred years, and 
who have also along with that sense, some instinct as 
to spirit, and its laws and ways. 

On the subject of anthropomorphism, both among 
those who have assailed. and those who have defended 
the phraseology of the Old Testament, the ignorance 
often has been indescribably great. And on neither 
side do the partisans ever seem to have suspected that 
perhaps the writers of the Scriptures may have written 
from an understanding into which they themselves 
may not have entered. That the law " was ordained 
by angels in the hand of a mediator " is a controlling 
fact, which it is always necessary to remember as to 
the Old Testament, and which yet has never been 
thought of by some of its censors. And so they have 
been like persons, undertaking with a foot-rule and 
compass to measure and criticise the perspective of 
Raphael's great picture of the Transfiguration. The 
writers of the Books of Samuel and of the Kings 
were certainly readers of the Book of Genesis ; and 
therefore whatever words or figures of speech they 
may have employed as to what God may have done or 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 371 

said or felt, are manifestly to be understood in some 
manner which may be consistent with the sublimity 
and spirituality of the account, in which creation is 
said to have begun, when " the Spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters." 

But it will be objected perhaps, " Do you then really 
believe that the Canaanites were slaughtered at the 
instance of the Lord ? And you do believe that the 
disobedient prophet was killed by a lion in fulfilment 
of a Divine prediction ! And you believe that the 
Lord sent a pestilence among the people when he was 
displeased with them ! " Well, yes ; I do believe all 
those things. But then I think about them with a 
better belief than some persons can conceive of. It is 
certain that the earth is the Lord's, and yet somehow 
the Canaanites were slaughtered in it. And it would 
seem probable, that, like many another man, a disobe- 
dient prophet was killed by a lion. And that a plague 
wasted the people of Israel two or three times is cer- 
tain, just as hundreds of pestilences have wasted other 
nations, whether they were sent or incurred or encoun- 
tered. And how can a pestilence possibly ever waste 
men, without the Divine concurrence being in some 
way implicated ? " Shall there be evil in a city, and 
the Lord hath not done it ? " 

Was there necessarily a greater amount of suffering 
in the world than usual, in those years when a part of 
it was specially directed ? And if a man died a death, 
which was foretold as well as foreknown by the Lord, 
should it be hard to be credited as a fact, or be counted 
for an incredible thing as to the Lord, by us human 
beings, who, at this moment, have, every one of us, 



372 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

" the sentence of death in ourselves/' either by a lion, 
or a railway car, or through violence in some other 
form, or else by disease ? We shrink from thinking as 
to a few individuals, that certain things were divinely 
done, which yet, a million times over, we* say, are the 
divine will as to the human race. It is the old reluc- 
tance, which can believe in God easily and grandly as 
the Lord of hosts, but not so readily as being " him 
with whom we have to do." 

It was asked of the Jews, through Moses, " For 
what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh 
unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that 
we call upon him for ? " And really it is simply for 
nighness, and not for quality of action, that exactly 
objection is made to the credibility of Jewish history, 
as to the Lord. And on the foregoing understanding, 
nighness is simply and fairly a matter of historical 
inquiry; and it is not of that utter improbability, 
which is sometimes lightly supposed. 

As to some actions, which purport to have been 
directed by the Spirit of the Lord, objection has been 
made, as not having been as merciful as Christianity, or 
as vigorous as Almightiness might have made them, or 
as being even of the nature of repentance. But the 
action of the Spirit among men is not to be judged of 
as human actions are : because the everlasting Spirit 
is not as the spirits of men are. The spirit of a man, 
to be its best, must strive to the uttermost : but the 
Spirit of the Lord, to be at its best with men, must 
temper itself for them as being weak and ignorant, and 
must adjust itself to those human circumstances which 
cannot be changed, without changing man himself, to 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 373 

an extent which would be almost like annihilation. 
Nor is the Spirit to be judged of as to its manifesta- 
tion in time and space, by what men may think it 
ought to show itself: since the Spirit is unchangea- 
ble, because of its being actually of the essence of all 
possible changes, and of all creations which ever have 
been, or can be. 

The Spirit of the Universe in action, is necessarily 
manifested for men withinside of their human condi- 
tions : and for the Jews, that it might be the better 
humanized for human apprehension, it even gave " the 
law by the disposition of angels." 

In the Old Testament, instead of the Lord, or the 
Lord God, or the angel of the Lord doing things, let it 
be supposed that it was written that the Spirit of 
Nature favored one race and extirpated another, and 
that for violation of her laws she suddenly visited 
men, with what truly were simple effects, but which 
apparently were like magical punishments. .And let it 
be supposed, besides, that it were found to have been 
written, that the Spirit of Nature was recognized by 
the Jews as blasting the fields at one time and blessing 
them at another, at her will. "Would that sound in- 
credibly to-day ; and is it not indeed what is actually 
going on about us, always ? 

Now the Lord God is the soul of nature. He may 
be more than that and infinitely more. And he may 
be the soul of various other natures, than this one, 
inside the circumference of which we live. But 
nevertheless, in a sense, God is nature. And now 
plainly does not nature favor individuals, one above 
another ; and one family more than another ; and one 



374 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

nation above other nations, as to strength, or beauty, 
or intellect, or wealth, or even sometimes as to all of 
them combined ? The word " luck " is derived from 
the name of a heathen deity ; and is it not still felt, 
as though by nature some persons were more lucky 
than others ? 

For a special purpose, the Lord, as regards a particu- 
lar people, acted avowedly through the forces of na- 
ture, but yet not more certainly than he is always act- 
ing. Spirit is the God of nature ; and also it is 
animal life with man. Also the Spirit is God Most 
High, and in the souls of good believing men it is the 
Holy Ghost. And as to whatever spiritual plane men 
may choose to live upon, or may be raised to, the words 
of Christ are true, " With the same measure that ye 
mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." It 
was from the Spirit, with which his soul was quick, 
and from his being like the mouthpiece of Divine 
Necessity, that Hosea at one time said of the Jews, 
" For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the 
whirlwind." 

God as he is known to the seraphs, and is expe- 
rienced on the seraphic plane, is not God as possibly 
he could be felt on the human plane, intelligibly and 
according to human wants, any more than a pious 
book by William Law could answer religiously such 
wants as a Kaffir may have. And God, as he is 
thought of, on steps far lower down, before his throne, 
than where seraphs and cherubs have their regions, is 
not God as he would be intelligible to persons living 
on this earth, and limited as to their capacities of 
thought, by the narrowness of their experiences, and 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 375 

by prejudices and feelings connected with their cra- 
dles, and which they can never get clear of, but along 
with their bodies. God can possibly have to do with 
us, only as being ignorant. For if he should approach 
us, as seraphs, we should never know of him, because 
of our senses and susceptibility being inferior to the 
seraphic. " Every good gift and every perfect gift is 
from above, and cometh down from the Father of 
lights." Yet it reaches this earth through agencies, 
and perhaps even through angelic intermediations. 
And certainly as it enters into this world, it is through 
some particular channel ; it is through the mind of 
a poet, or the apprehension of a philosopher, or dur- 
ing the meditative mood of some religious genius ; 
and it is, therefore, through a certain few persons, who, 
whether they know it or not, are in their time and 
place, more or less successfully, and more or less faith- 
fully, like ministering Levites, standing before the 
Lord. And it was through a similar ministration of 
the Spirit, that the Old Testament was made the long 
preparatory introduction to the New. Also, of the 
Gospel, the first believers and preachers as being He- 
brews, were men of hereditary fitness, as being mem- 
bers of a family, whose minds had been shaped as to 
apprehension, expectation, and belief, by the manner 
in which their forefathers had been divinely dealt 
with, during more than a thousand years. And it 
was from this point of view, that St. Paul wrote to 
the Galatians, "Wherefore the law was our school- 
master to bring us unto Christ." 

And now let another point be considered, connected 
with the miraculous. The natural eye, it may be, with 



376 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

infinitely various splendors before it, can see only what, 
by its nature, it is ready to perceive : and so it is with 
the spiritual eye. The natural eye is fixed as to its 
constituents, and therefore as to its capability of being 
strengthened, and its ability of perceiving. But the 
spiritual eye is not so fixed, because of its being an 
organ not only for ever- widening fields, but also for 
states, which may become more and more interior, to 
all eternity. The eye of the spirit, therefore, when it 
is open, is probably the eye of that state, in which the 
spirit is, for a time, by information and faith. 

It is one of the primary and deepest truths, as to 
human nature, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw 
nigh to you." But a man can see only what he is 
ready to see. And a Divine communication pressing 
into the mind of a prophet, has shape and coloring, 
from the imagery and religious expectations, with 
which the receiving mind may be furnished. And so 
it was, that the Father Everlasting, without beginning 
or end of days, seemed to Daniel, in his vision, as 
though " the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment 
was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the 
pure wool." Also, in the first vision of the prophet 
Ezekiel, there was a manifestation of the Spirit, 
through which " when the living creatures went, the 
wheels went with them : and when the living creatures 
were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted 
up. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went." 
And of this imagery, it may be, that the original, as 
Ezekiel saw it, or what is some copy of it, is to be 
seen to-day, among the sculptures, Assyrian perhaps, 
which are preserved in the British Museum. 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 377 

World beyond world, and state within state, — tins is 
the condition by which we live. Are there varieties of 
report amongst us resulting thence spiritually ? Certain- 
ly there are, and there must be ; just as in England, a 
coal-heaver, a mason, a brass-founder, a glass-polisher 
and an astronomer-royal, would vary infinitely about 
what the heavens may be, or may have to show, though 
even they may all of them actually have worked to- 
gether, for the construction of the same observatory. 

And if a star can shine differently into different 
minds, because of their being informed, some more than 
others and some less ; so may some primal truth of the 
spiritual world, shining on the minds of men, be ap- 
prehended by one person in one way, and by another 
person in another way. And thus it is that for saints 
in the same spiritual sphere with St. John, " God is 
love " ; while yet for men, in a lower sphere, wanton 
against grace, brutish, and rebellious, " Our God is a 
consuming fire." And that indeed he must be, or else 
be nothing. And perhaps revelation and the probabili- 
ties of human expectation as to the next world, will 
all be fulfilled in spirits having the scene about them 
change with their love of God. 

Much difficulty has been felt about the Old Testa- 
ment, as though it were inconsistent with the impar- 
tiality of God ; and as though it were a thing incredi- 
ble, that God should have had "a chosen people." 
But now in what manner, and for what end were they 
chosen ? Was it favoritism ? But really that could 
not be argued from their history, from the pestilences 
and the famine which they endured, and from the 
manner in which their sins were visited upon them, 



378 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

and from their captivity in Babylon, and their disper- 
sion by the Eomans. And certainly with the proph- 
ets, age after age, " the word of the Lord," as it came, 
was commonly reproach, indignation, and warning. A 
chosen people they were ; but they were chosen for the 
good of others, just as much as for their own. The 
promise, as it was made to Abraham, at his call, was 
" And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." 
But why through the Jews was this blessing to accrue, 
rather than through any other people ? Simply per- 
haps because, as it had got to be given through some 
nation, they were as good for the purpose as any other. 
Or, it may be, that without being morally either better 
or worse than other nations, there was in them some 
constitutional peculiarity, through which they were 
eligible for a particular purpose. But the use to which 
God puts a man is no pleasure for him, unless first his 
heart be right with God. And if a man be a born 
poet, it is only with his singing aloud and well and re- 
joicing others, that he can truly know and feel himself. 
In what way, then, have all the families of the earth 
been blessed through Abraham ? They have not all 
yet been blessed, but are many of them only about 
to be. But Christ was the blessing predestined. And 
the Jewish mind, as it was schooled by # experience, 
and solemnized by the Lord, and taught of God, was 
in the fulness of time, like flesh for " the Word," when 
it was to dwell among us. 

The experiences of the Jewish people, as they are 
written in the Old Testament, regarded as mental, do- 
mestic, political, and spiritual preparation, are what is 
meant in the epistle to the Hebrews, where Jesus is de- 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 379 

scribed as contemplating an entrance into this world, 
in concurrence with prophecy, to do the will of heaven ; 
and when he says, as before God, and looking down 
upon the earth, " A body hast thou prepared for me." 
And thus it was actually towards us Christians of to- 
day that God condescended, when he called Abraham. 
And it was for us that the prophets prophesied. And 
when the psalmists sang, they really sang for us of 
this age, and more effectively perhaps than even for 
their own immediate friends. In the Babylonish cap- 
tivity, it was what might have been our faithlessness, 
individually, which was chastened ; and it may be, that 
through the punishment of the Jews, and their " stripes 
we are healed." 

The marvellousness of Jewish history is the glorifi- 
cation of my nature. And whatever the graciousness 
of God may have been towards Saul, it may yet avail 
me to-day in the flesh, as a mere history, more than it 
ever did him. And that wisdom, of which Solomon 
was the channel, but which he failed to appropriate for 
his own good, has been of some profit for me, through 
perhaps ten thousand unknown channels. 

As to every true poet that ever sung, as to every 
person of spiritual insight that ever spoke, as to every 
man that ever God raised up, for an emergency in hu- 
man affairs, and also as to those nations, who may have 
been receptive of it in any way, whether in Greece, 
Italy, or Palestine, the Spirit has been manifested " for 
every man to profit withal." And it is the explanation 
and the justification of Jewish history, as to the pecu- 
liar people, and the covenants and the fathers and the 
promises, and the glory, that out of it all " as concern- 
ing the flesh, Christ came, who is over all." 



380 THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

It would seem as though there were descent by spirit 
as well as by blood • and it would appear also as though 
there were a descent by spirit, in connection with blood. 
And it would seem too, with living together earnestly, 
that people strengthen and perpetuate ways of think- 
ing, and even generate a spirit which, for intensity and 
thoroughness, is like infection for those who come with- 
in its reach. And by the manner in which the Jews 
were secluded from other nations, and through their 
sympathy with one another as fellow- worshippers, man- 
ifestly there was induced an intensity of belief as to 
the unity of God, which has been like leaven for leav- 
ening the whole world. And, but for the Old Testa- 
ment, there never could have been the New, nor ever 
could the Son of God have been manifested, nor possi- 
bly could the Holy Spirit have had its right action 
on believers. 

And now, not unreasonably, it may seem, as though 
a man of the highest science, and of the truest intui- 
tions, and of the widest information as to history, might 
say, " When I pray, I pray out of my heart, trusting 
that the Spirit of God's sending will inform my prayer 
and quicken me. And at times, also, I am glad to 
think, as I kneel before my Father in heaven, that I 
am looking in the direction of the God of Abraham, 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." 

Glory to the Lord my God, who knows me better 
than I know myself, and who, whatever else he may 
be, is surely better than my goodness ! 

Glory to God, who " created the heavens and the 
earth,"* and because of whose outflowing Spirit things 
seen and temporal are but like the dark shadows of 
things unseen and eternal ! 



THE SPIRIT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 381 

Glory to God, whose word as it goes forth lights 
high heaven with splendor, and kindles every seraph, 
and enlightens every angel, and is an impulse among 
men, which utters itself more or less effectively in the 
languages of many lands ! 

Glory to God in the highest, as that archetypal mind, 
whence the elements derive their properties, and whence 
also are evolved the ages as they come and pass ; 
wherein, too, the first man existed as a thought, before 
he walked this earth in form ; and without which, no 
kingdom can rise to its destiny, nor even a sparrow fall 
to the ground ! 

Glory be to God, for he makes spirits be his angels, 
and flaming fire do him service ! 

Glory to God ! " who at sundry times and in divers 
manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the 
prophets." 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

THE New Testament is no detached piece of his- 
tory ; and the documents of which it is com- 
posed have other connections than simply with one 
another. Its title as the New presupposes the Old 
Testament : and throughout, it is alive with the spirit 
and phraseology of Isaiah and Jeremiah and David 
and Elijah and Moses. And just as a government may 
for continuity and spirit be the same government, 
throughout many generations of ministers and subjects 
connected with it, so was the era of the New Testa- 
ment a continuation of the line of ages, which dates 
from Abraham. 

At the birth of Jesus there was present a con- 
tinuity of custom, thought, and hope, which began, as 
all the Jews of the age gloried in believing, " with the 
faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." At 
that time, for everybody, everywhere, with the excep- 
tion of a Eoman garrison, for everything it was the 
law of Moses. The smoke of the morning and of the 
evening sacrifice went up from Mount Moriah, over 
Jerusalem, just as it had been commanded in the 
desert. The foundations of the temple were what 
Solomon had laid. And as the priests chanted their 
psalms, often it was in the words of David and of 
a thousand years before. The prophets indeed were 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 383 

dead, but in every synagogue, on every Sabbath, still 
they were to be heard, speaking from their books. 
And outside of Judea, in Eome probably, and in Cor- 
inth, and in many other places, there was a state of 
things, like what was pleaded as a fact, in a conference 
of the earliest Christians about the Gentiles, and 
which is thus written of in the Book of Acts : " Moses 
of old time hath in every city them that preach him, 
being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." 
And throughout Palestine, all the localities, loudly as 
they speak to-day, yet spoke still more impressively, 
eighteen hundred years ago, of Samson, Samuel, Saul, 
David, Solomon, Elijah, and Elisha. And at that time, 
no doubt, there were places, which seemed, as though 
still glowing with the presence of Isaiah, or mourning 
along with the spirit of Jeremiah, and as though still 
fresh from the footsteps of Hosea and Amos, or as 
though made holy by the life of Malachi, the last of 
the prophets. Nor, as it would seem, had the voice of 
prophecy then been quite suspended, because with his 
annual entry into the holy of holies, in the temple, it 
was believed that the high priest for the year became 
prophetic for some particular purpose. And indeed, 
at that period, all the land of Judea was alive with 
traditions of what the angel of the Lord had been ; 
and of what judgments had been incurred, and what 
hopes had been imparted from the Lord ; and of what 
miracles had been wrought, at one place and another, 
and what visions, also, and dreams had been vouch- 
safed to one man and another. By its nature, time 
past in Judea, for effect had become prophetic of a 
future wonderful and miraculous. 



384 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

The Old Testament was like the soul of the Jewish 
people. It was what they thought from, what they 
prayed by, and what they trusted to. The God of Abra- 
ham and of Isaac and of Jacob was the God they looked 
to, and towards whom their souls were open. Histori- 
cally, they were the Lord's people, but not therefore 
spiritually, all of them, and altogether ; for it was then, 
as it is to-day, when Christians pray for that coming, 
which would destroy many of them with its bright- 
ness. And so it was that, at the commencement of 
our era, every mountain and valley and city from 
Beersheba to Lebanon, every fisherman on the lake 
of Galilee, and at Jerusalem every member of the 
Sanhedrim, and every man in the market-place, 
Scribes and Pharisees all, and every worshipper also, 
that went up into the temple to pray, was alive 
with the spirit of the past, and with hopes accruing 
from it. 

From the termination of the Old Testament to the 
commencement of the New, there was a space of four 
hundred years, which, however, was not without its 
documents, which are to be found in the Apocrypha. 
During this interval, the Jews had become more and 
more a peculiar people, so as indeed to have hold of a 
right belief, many of them, in a most unrighteous 
spirit. And indeed they had become, and they were 
what they were, a mere earthen vessel, wherein was 
held aloft and before the whole world, the golden, 
heavenly, eternal truth of the unity of God. 

The day, which Jesus Christ said that Abraham had 
rejoiced at foreseeing, was coming. And for many and 
perhaps a thousand converging reasons before the 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 385 

throne of God, " now the fulness of the time was 
come." These are the first verses of the Gospel ac- 
cording to St. Mark. " The beginning of the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God : as it is written in 
the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy 
face, which shall prepare my way before thee. The 
voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John did 
baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of 
repentance for the remission of sins. And there went 
out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jeru- 
salem, and were all baptized of him in the river of 
Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed 
with camel's hair, and with a girdle of skin about his 
loins ; and he did eat locusts and wild honey ; and 
preached, saying — " 

And here now on the instant starts up our modern 
scepticism and exclaims, " Written in the prophets, the 
old "prophets ! That is a very good beginning certain-- 
ly ! But preaching in the wilderness ! A popular 
preacher keeping to the wilderness, — that is too ridic- , 
ulous. And who was John ? who was his father ? O, 
Zacharias, indeed ! But who then was the Scribe that 
registered his birth ? For, it is pretended, that the 
Jews had registers of births among them. Preaching 
the baptism of repentance ! What an audacious under- 
taking ! Why was he to preach in that way, rather 
than anybody else ? And then for his food, locusts 
and wild honey ! Did anybody ever hear of such a 
diet ? But, no doubt, he was secretly supplied from 
the city with something better than that; was not 
he ?" And to this, answer is proper thus : "No, he was 
17 y 



386 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

not, probably. Go away, poor child of self-conceit 
and misfortune, go away. What have you to do with 
the time and scene and spirit, which we are trying to 
realize ? Get away into the fields, and find, if you 
can, the prodigal son ; and, far away from the flippan- 
cies and fashions of the day, think with yourself till 
you come to yourself, and feel yourself to be a living 
soul with the feelings, responsibilities, and connections 
of a soul immortal." Eeason in its majesty ought to 
be welcome everywhere ; and it has a place, indeed, 
immediately under the throne of the Most High. But 
what has mere pertness to do at the gate of the holy 
of holies ? It can really do nothing there, except 
incur penal blindness ; as the Syrians did at Dothan, 
when they reached out their hands for the life of the 
prophet Elisha. 

At the birth of Jesus Christ, it was, as St. Paul wrote 
to the Galatians, because " the fulness of the time was 
come." And not improbably, it was, for the whole 
world, a more complete fulness of time than what 
Paul of himself could ever have thought. Because, as 
to the providential agencies concerned with a great 
crisis in human affairs, the chief actors in it may per- 
sonally know no more than many other people of the 
time. For, persons may meet together for a settlement 
of their differences, by argument, fight, or otherwise, and 
yet be merely the representatives of forces, external to 
themselves, and of the potency of which they may be 
quite unaware. A great crisis like " the fulness of the 
time " is to be known of by men thoroughly, only from 
some watch-tower commanding the stream of time. 
And so it is possible, that Paul as to the fulness of 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 387* 

time, wrote by the Spirit, more truly than he himself 
knew of. 

Four hundred years previously, Plato had written, 
that in his view, there was no hope of deliverance 
for man, from the vile slough into which they had 
fallen, but through the intervention of that Power, by 
which they had . been created. And as appears also, 
from classical authors, there was, about the commence- 
ment of our era, in the Eoman Empire, a strange, wan- 
dering, prophetic sense abroad, that there was a crisis 
rising as to human affairs. In describing the capture of 
Jerusalem by Titus, it is said by Tacitus in his heathen 
way, " Omens had happened, for averting which, there 
is no rite practised by a people, who are opposed to all 
religion, though actually very superstitious. Troops 
were seen to meet in the sky, and arms to glisten, and 
the temple was suddenly illuminated by light from 
the clouds. The doors of the inner temple were sud- 
denly thrown open, and a voice more than human was 
heard saying that the gods were going. These things 
frightened some people. But most persons were there- 
by more fully persuaded, that what was contained in 
the ancient writings of the priests was coming true, 
that the East was about to be magnified, and people 
from Judea about to rise to power." And Suetonius 
writes to the same effect and says, " A certain ancient 
and persistent notion had overspread the East, that by 
Fate, people from Judea would become supreme." And 
in the same way, Josephus wrote, after the fall of Je- 
rusalem, that what had emboldened the Jews, to resist 
the Eomans, was an uncertain oracle contained in their 
sacred books, that some of them, about that time, would 



388 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

rule the world. Very singular indeed was that expect- 
ant state of the public mind, which there was, among 
both the Jews and the heathen, during that century, 
in which Jesus Christ was born. No doubt, the world 
had grown ripe for a great change, and was also con- 
scious of that ripeness, through the best intellects of 
the age. 

Greece had yielded its best as to intellectual prepa- 
ration, for the world. And Eome had subordinated all 
nations to itself, from Britain to the borders of Persia, 
and by permeation, had made them like one people, 
and had tied them together with roads, opening in 
every direction, from the Forum. The Gentiles had 
been working for an end beyond their thought, and 
had unconsciously been fulfilling ancient prophecy, and 
preparing the world for the new doctrine that should 
proclaim the brotherhood of man. Eome had uncon- 
sciously been making ready with its work, and Judea, 
without knowing it, had been producing the man, 
against "the fulness of the time," and the fulfilment of 
the prophecy of Isaiah : " The voice of him that crieth 
in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and 
hill shall be made low : and the crooked shall be made 
straight, and the rough places plain ; and the glory of 
the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it 
together : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

Probably it was as the earth answers to heaven, elec- 
trically ; but any way, so it was, that the world, at its 
best, was as though expectant, about the time when 
Christ was manifested. This state of expectation may 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 389 

perhaps have been from what Plato had said, or it may 
have merely been occasioned by some Sibylline proph- 
ecy, such as every now and then got wandering about 
the world and exciting men's minds ; or it may have 
been caused simply by the shadow of a great event, 
forthcoming from the gates of destiny. There is an 
eclogue of Virgil, which has always had a fascination 
for some minds, as seeming like what might have been 
written from inspiration at Jerusalem. And certainly 
it is a strange, singular poem ; for it is in the spirit of 
Isaiah, rather than like the Muse of Theocritus. And 
it is as though in some high mood, while Virgil was 
thinking to express his best wishes for the newly born 
child of a friend, he had actually been caught by the 
spirit of prophecy, and been lifted up like Ezekiel, and 
been made to shape his words, as though for a Messiah 
just born. And if any one should think that so this 
may have been, he might maintain his belief by many 
analogies and instances. For, through being possessed 
and overmastered by a mighty spirit, often a man has 
said grandly what he never thought, and been even 
like Balaam, who blessed sublimely, while washing 
only to curse. But, however that may have been, there 
was, at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, a pro- 
phetic sense abroad of something great about to hap- 
pen, and not in Judea only. And so it w~as, "now 
when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the 
days of Herod the king" that the words of Haggai 
came true, which had been uttered five hundred years 
before, not out of his own mind, but by the spirit of 
prophecy, " And I will shake all nations, and the de- 
sire of all nations shall come : and I will fill this house 
with glory, saith the Lord of hosts." 



390 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

And here abruptly our modern captiousness calls out, 
" Somewhat indefinite that, is it not ? If there was to 
be a prophecy, why was it not accompanied by the 
names of persons and places, and by exact dates, and 
by the names of the kings, or emperors, that were to 
be ? " To which the answer is, But now the end of 
that course of thought is, that you can have nothing 
to do with God Almighty, unless he will show himself 
in a court constituted after human methods, and be 
examined and cross-examined as to his right to own 
human creatures and to deal with them. Woe unto 
him that striveth with his Maker ! Potsherd of earth, 
is that the temper, in which you can even treat with 
your fellow-potsherds ? Or is that the spirit, in which 
men of the least success have ever contemplated the 
earth, geologically ? Also, what, necessarily has Spirit, 
foretelling its course, to do with names ; for, what has 
the mere name of a man to do with the spirit of an age ? 

This matter of prophecy is not for a man, whose 
mind has been narrowed to the mere methods of sci- 
ence, nor yet for a bigot of the Talmud, nor yet for a 
bigot of any Christian kind, because really it is the 
affair of human nature at its highest and truest. And 
indeed it is a subject for men, not of mathematics 
merely, but of poetry and intuition, and of wide learn- 
ing as well as modern sharpness ; and who also have 
had personal experience of the Spirit, as dealing with 
them, for sin, and redemption and hope. And for such 
men, the Old Testament is one long grand prophecy as 
to the " desire of all nations," and the manner of his 
coming. 

The people of Israel were a chosen people ; were 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 391 

they ? They were ; but yet not to the exclusion or 
detriment of other nations ; because, through the 
choice of them, divinely, all other nations were to be 
blessed, and to know the Lord, and have a Messiah, 
and receive the Spirit. 

The beginning of Christianity was not at Bethlehem, 
nor yet at Nazareth ; and it was indeed, very long be- 
fore Caesar Augustus became emperor : for it was when 
there was " preached before the gospel unto Abraham, 
saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." And if 
it were as Paul writes, that it pleased God " to reveal 
his Son in me, that I might preach him among the 
heathen," it was because, first, as he says, God " sep- 
arated me from my mother's womb, and called me by 
his grace." And before the words, God, Father, faith, 
and Spirit could have their right meanings, as spoken 
by the apostles, it was necessary that they should have 
been used in joy and sorrow, and hope and fear, by one 
generation after another, and by Moses as a lawgiver, 
and by David as a Psalmist, and by the prophets, one 
after another, in their various messages of love, or an- 
ger, or direction, or encouragement. 

There is not an age of the ancient Church, but lives 
to-day, by its influence, in every member of the Church 
of God. If faith avails me to-day, for righteousness 
or a hereafter, it is because I am " blessed with faithful 
Abraham." The heathen are the majority in the world, 
as yet, and according to them, " there be gods many, 
and lords many." And " the fool hath said in his heart, 
There is no God." And that everything is God, is what 
a student is liable to think, if he forgets himself, as a 
finite limited creature, with whom sometimes inquiry 



392 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

must grow microscopic as it grows intense, and there- 
fore must report less and less of the infinite and eternal. 
And if my soul has in it provision against its times of 
trial and agony, it is because of something in me, which 
is like an instinct ; it is because of spirit by descent ; it 
is because of an inherited feeling, from ages long be- 
fore the commencement of our era, as to the God of 
heaven and earth being the God of persons, the God 
of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob ; and it is be- 
cause of great souls, that were before Christ ; because 
of the manner in which David agonized, and had his 
spirit drawn, that myself I can exclaim and plead, " 
God, thou art my God." 

Jesus said to the Jews, in the temple, on an occa- 
sion when he was charged, somewhat indiscriminately, 
with being a Samaritan, and also with having a devil, 
"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and 
he saw it, and was glad." This prophetic view of the 
future had been a grace vouchsafed to Abraham by the 
Spirit ; and apparently also it was through the Spirit, 
that Jesus was enabled to speak of it. 

The Spirit of the Lord, as it legislated for the Jews, 
anciently, was making ready for that wonderful liberty, 
wherewith Christ was to make the wdiole world free. 
The Spirit, through the prophets and through the 
agency of nature, taught and guided the people of Is- 
rael, and warned and punished them, and cheered and 
blessed them, not for the sake of them, as individuals, 
merely or mainly, but because they were to be a peo- 
ple, " of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ " was to 
come. The Spirit, as it ruled the Jews, foretold in its 
action, the future of the Gentiles. These words were 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 393 

from the Spirit, through Isaiah, nearly eight hundred 
years before the birth of Jesus Christ. " And it shall 
come to pass in the last day, that the mountain of the 
Lord's house shall be established in the top of the 
mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and 
all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall 
go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain 
of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and 
he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his 
paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the 
word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge 
among the nations, and shall rebuke many people ; and 
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and 
their spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift 
up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more." The vision is not yet as to accomplish- 
ment, on the subject of war : but it is not therefore the 
less wonderful for any man, who has an eye for his- 
tory, and the workings of the human spirit, and for those 
many other signs of the times, which are to be discerned 
to-day, besides what glitter from the points of bayo- 
nets. Ten or twelve generations had lived and died in 
the knowledge of the preceding prophecy, when, through 
Malachi, the Spirit predicted as to its own course, " Be- 
hold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare 
the way before me ; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall 
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of 
the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he shall 
come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide 
the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when he 
appeareth ? " This anticipation of the Spirit was what, 
four hundred years later, was to be continued as a 
17* 



394 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

lamentation of the Spirit, by the utterance of Jesus 
Christ, " Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the 
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, 
how often would I have gathered thy children together, 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not ! Behold your house is left unto you 
desolate." As to the preceding prophecies, the Spirit 
justified itself. For, to Jerusalem, it happened, just as 
was said by Jesus Christ, as he looked at it, from the 
Mount of Olives. And we Christians all, do we not 
worship in a temple, which though not made with 
hands, has yet for its porch and entrance, that house of 
God upon the mountain, which Isaiah knew of ? And 
are w r e not Christians, because of what the Jews were 
anciently ? 

They were almost the last words of the last of the 
prophets, " Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, 
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the 
Lord." They had been pondered by the Jews for four 
hundred years. And so, on his appearance, John was 
asked if he were the Christ, and if not the Christ, then 
if he were Elias. Both which things he denied. That 
the Christ was near him, he felt, but apparently without 
being certain as to who it was. " And John bare rec- 
ord, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven 
like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him 
not ; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the 
same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the 
Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is 
he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw 
and bare record that this is the Son of God." 

But it is asked, "Why was that particular person 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 395 

chosen rather than anybody else ; and why was Christ 
manifested at that particular time, rather than a hun- 
dred years earlier or later ? But it might as well be 
questioned, as to why Milton should have been more 
of a poet than all other men of his generation ; and 
as to why some plant should flower certainly, and yet 
only once in a hundred years. 

" When the fulness of the time was come, God sent 
forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 
that w r e might receive the adoption of sons." The 
Jewish people were ripe for his production ; and all 
nations were awaiting him, as their desire. And for 
the fulness of the time, it w r as as though the whole 
world were folded about by eternity, with forces and 
tendencies converging for a crisis. The air felt as 
though it had grown prophetic ; and men were " wait- 
ing for the consolation of Israel," as Simeon was, before 
it was revealed to him about the Lord's Christ. And 
indeed nature now w r as about to let in " a multitude of 
the heavenly host," for praising God, within the hear- 
ing of mortals : and about to be ready also for admit- 
ting inside of its walls more than twelve legions of 
angels, should Jesus pray for them to the Father. 

For "the fulness of the time," other conditions 
may have contributed, besides those which are dedu- 
cible from prophecy and history. The philosophy of 
what is called a Eevival of Eeligion might perhaps be 
made to yield some information on this subject. In- 
deed, historically, it is evident that there are times of 
what the Scriptures call refreshing from the Lord. 
And to philosophers, who even have been irreligious, it 
has seemed as though at certain emergencies, there 



396 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

certainly must have been a force, extraneous to men, 
individually, which quickened and whirled them, and 
disposed of them by a will of its own, independent 
and irresistible. 

And perhaps, also, we mortals may be spiritually 
affected, for numbness or quickness, by conditions de- 
pendent on even the particular quarter of the universe, 
wherein our earth may happen to be carrying us. It 
is common experience that we are dull or lively, with 
the state of the atmosphere, and especially as to elec- 
tricity. Also, at present, we are borne, annually, 
through showers of what are called falling stars, but 
of which, anciently, there would seem to have been 
no knowledge. Men " are fearfully and wonderfully 
made " ; and as being possibly children of God, they 
are the creatures not of a Commonwealth simply, nor 
a continent, nor even of a planet, but are natives of 
the universe. And a grand and worthy saying was 
that of Paul, as to the coming of Christ, and sounding 
like what he might have been taught of God, — " The 
fulness of the time was come." 

But why did not everybody know it, when the time 
was come ? But further yet than that, why has not 
everybody since Adam known all that the heavens 
have been proclaiming : and why do so few people 
know even to-day what the best astronomers have 
caught ? John the Baptist could scarcely believe in 
himself. He knew that he was the " voice of one 
crying in the wilderness " ; but he did not know that 
he was Elias. As indeed how could he know that at 
a time, when all that he knew of the one behind him 
was, that himself he was not worthy to take off his 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 397 

shoes. By the Spirit, afterwards, he was shown that 
the Christ was Jesus. And Jesus subsequently was 
enabled to say of him, " This is Elias which was for to 
come." Truths from the highest are not readily sub- 
ordinated by the earthly understanding : and the moni- 
tions of the Spirit are but slowly translated into the 
dialect of common life. 

Of the preceding remark, there is some illustration 
even in the life of Jesus. When the Spirit came upon 
him, in John's sight, there had to be a reception of it 
and appropriation. And Jesus did not on the instant, 
begin to teach on the river-side, nor look round for the 
nearest sick person to heal. " And immediately the 
spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was 
there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan ; 
and was w T ith the wild beasts ; and the angels minis- 
tered unto him." This was not unlike what happened 
to Ezekiel, when the word of the Lord first came to 
him. " So the spirit lifted me up and took me away, 
and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit ; but 
the hand of the Lord was strong upon me." For soli- 
tude and fasting, Jesus was, for the time, like some 
prophet of the Old Testament. But not even once 
would he seem to have been a subject of that ecstasy, 
which w^as characteristic of the prophets. Nor even 
would he seem to have had what was a common expe- 
rience with Daniel. " And I Daniel fainted, and was 
sick certain days ; afterward I rose up, and did the 
king's business ; and I was astonished at the vision, 
but none understood it." But still apparently, Jesus 
was not on the instant, both as to body and mind, ab- 
solutely congruent with the Spirit, which had come 



398 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW. 

upon him. And indeed long afterwards, the Son of 
man prayed in regard to his suffering greatness as the 
Son of God, " Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove 
this cup from me : nevertheless, not my will, but thine, 
be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from 
heaven, strengthening him." 

And so when Jesus w r as " led up of the Spirit, into 
the wilderness," it was that he might be tempted, as 
indeed he could not but be ; it was that he might man- 
ifest his temper, while growing suddenly out of the 
condition of a humble Nazarene, into something even 
greater perhaps than " the nature of angels " ; it was 
that he might commence his Messiahship with over- 
coming Satan, at his greatest advantage ; and it was, 
that in quiet and apart from the world, he might have 
his soul quicken, and fill, and strengthen with that 
Spirit, which was to become his without measure. 



THE SPIEIT. 

THE Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of 
God, the Holy Ghost ! There is nothing which 
more intimately concerns us than that, and nothing, 
also, which is more difficult to know about, theo- 
logically. And yet perhaps it is simple enough, for 
willing and simple people. However, of all the various 
kinds of knowledge, proverbially self-knowledge is the 
most difficult. And perhaps it is because the Spirit 
is so near to us, and is indeed part of us, at times, and 
like the breath we draw, and the strength we have, 
and the light we see by, that it has been so hard to 
think about. 

Says Baumgarten : " The doctrine of the Holy Spirit 
remained a long time undecided. It lay near to the 
first church in a practical respect only." And says 
Neander : " Some believed him to be a mere power ; 
some confounded the idea of person with the charism ; 
others supposed him to be a creature ; others believed 
him to be God ; and others still were undecided. 
The practical recognition of him, however, as the prin- 
ciple of the divine life in man, was almost universal 
in the early church." It would seem, however, as 
though perhaps the uncertainty of the primitive Chris- 
tians may have been a better thing than the certainty 
of their successors could possibly have been, two or 



400 THE SPIRIT. 

three hundred years later. For, in the fourth century 
of our era, the Christian Church was permeated through 
door and window, by influences from the surrounding 
world of heathenism and " philosophy falsely so called." 
The Apostles' Creed, as it is called, would seem to have 
been the earliest creed of the Church. And as to the 
Spirit, this creed says simply, " I believe in the Holy 
Ghost." And for a more particular belief than that, 
the Creed would certainly commend us to the Scrip- 
tures, and not to the controversialists of the third and 
fourth centuries. 

What, then, is to be understood by the Spirit of 
God, the Holy Spirit ; that Spirit which was promised 
and poured out ; which rested on a person, and with 
which people were baptized ? Like " the Word," it is 
a phrase both generic and special, and of various mean- 
ings. The primary meaning of the Scriptural word 
for Spirit is breath or wind; just as the primitive 
meaning of " Logos " is that by which men word their 
thoughts. Other meanings of the word " spirit" are 
the spirit of a living man, and the spirit of a man 
which has departed the body. Angels are called 
spirits. God is described as being spirit ; and his ac- 
tion in nature and on man is said to be through the 
Spirit. 

Jesus Christ said that God is spirit. At the beginning 
of creation, " The Spirit of God moved upon the face of 
the waters." And said Job, " By his spirit he hath gar- 
nished the heavens." And said Elihu to Job, " If he 
gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh 
shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto 
the dust." It is true that " there is a spirit in man " ; 



THE SPIRIT. 401 

but it is from another spirit than itself, that it lives to 
any good purpose ; for it understands aright only by 
" the inspiration of the Almighty." Spirit is the life 
of everything. And it is the life of my life ; and it 
is also what must be with me, as a foreign presence, or 
else I could not be myself, nor think, nor have a word 
on my tongue. " Such knowledge is too wonderful for 
me ; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither 
shall I go from thy spirit ? " But besides this pervad- 
ing, life-supporting presence of the Spirit, there is an 
action of it which is intermittent, conditional, and 
occasional. 

When " all the sons of God shouted for joy " at the 
beginning of our earth, no doubt, it was mainly, be- 
cause for them, the new house prophesied of its in- 
habitants, that were to be, age after age. 

And as to the human body merely, it is plain now, 
that type after type in creation, it is what nature had 
been forecasting, from the first saurian that ever crept, 
and from the time when the elephant was endowed 
with a trunk, so wonderfully like the arm and hand 
of a man, for pliability, adaptability, and delicacy of 
touch. Yes, and from a period long before Adam, by 
a hundred symptomatic creations, nature prophesied 
of man, as he was to be, not merely as to the shape of 
his body, but even also as to those instincts which 
largely determine his manner of life. 

Out of the same dust of the ground as an elephant 
was the body of Adam formed, by the Lord God ; but 
into that human body, as being a temple, wherein there 
was to be worship afterwards, there w^as breathed " the 
breath of life ; and man became a living soul." That 

z 



402 THE SPIRIT. 

breath ! to all eternity, it is the difference of a step be- 
tween the highest bestial and the lowest spiritual ; it is 
the width of a proper miracle, on the scale of creation. 

He is liable to be confused by light, for which inci- 
dentally he may not be ready ; but otherwise by na- 
ture, man is all that the best beast is, and additionally, 
he is created with a susceptibility as to influences, from 
what is super-bestial, and even supernatural. What 
was written as to a higher plane spiritually than what 
Adam started on, is yet applicable as to the coming of 
the first man into the world, — "A body hast thou pre- 
pared for me." And because of its adaptation as to the 
world which now is, and because also of its porch-like 
nature as to the world which is to come, the frame of 
man, as connected with the book of nature, is what 
might well prompt the soul to say, " Lo, I come (in the 
volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, 
God." 

A living soul, that could be spoken to, spiritually, 
and that could hear, and that was even also free to 
hear or not to hear, to obey or not to obey ! A new 
creation this ! And also this was the commencement 
of a new era under the skies. For " the Spirit of God " 
which had been moving " upon the face of the waters " 
had become now a voice in the garden of Eden, — the 
Lord God speaking. 

" The Lord God speaking ! " exclaims our modern 
scepticism. "That could not have been, for he was 
not obeyed; and so on any understanding of it, sym- 
bolic or otherwise, there can be no meaning in that 
narrative." And who are we that think so ? We are 
persons certainly that own to conscience, and who have 



THE SPIRIT. 403 

therefore been like Adam and Eve, over and over again, 
for that disobedience, which seems so incredible in 
them. For, certainly, we cannot say that the voice of 
conscience would be more authoritative than it now is 
with us, merely for quivering on the air before reach- 
ing us spiritually. 

When man was created, it was by the same Spirit 
as that which garnished the heavens, though by a 
diversity of operation. And when that Spirit which 
had coerced and informed the elements began the 
training of creatures in the image of God, it was neces- 
sarily through adaptation, and by being fatherly as well 
as almighty, and by being perhaps a voice, while as yet 
conscience had not begun to speak, and by being com- 
panionship for the first human beings in the solitude 
of an unpeopled world. 

In the Scriptures, when it is said that God spoke, 
the right understanding would seem to be, that it was 
through an angel. Jacob had a dream, or more pre- 
cisely perhaps, a vision in a dream, as to which he 
says what follows. " The angel of God spake unto me 
in a dream, saying Jacob : and I said, Here am I." 
But then that same personage, which had commenced 
speaking as an angel, as he continues his speech, says, 
" I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the 
pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me." When 
Moses was keeping his flock of sheep near Mount 
Horeb, " the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a 
flame of fire out of the midst of a bush." And when 
Moses went near to see how there could be such a fire, 
and the bush not be burning with it, the voice which 
called to him out of the bush was from God, and it 




404 . THE SPIRIT. 

said, " I am the God of thy father, the God of Abra- 
ham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob/' And 
similarly, it is to be read, " The Lord went before them 
by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way." 
And almost immediately afterwards it is written, " And 
the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, 
removed and went behind them : and the pillar of the 
cloud went from before their face, and stood behind 
them." 

In the Book of Numbers, it is to be read that Moses 
talked with the Lord, and said as to the Egyptians, 
"They have heard that thou Lord art among this 
people, that thou Lord art seen face to face, and that 
thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest be- 
fore them, by daytime in a pillar of a cloud, and in a 
pillar of fire by night." And yet at the commencement 
of the Gospel of John it is written, " No man hath seen 
God at any time." Now, how are these two very dis- 
tinct statements to be reconciled ? It is to be done 
through a third, very simply; and it is to be read in 
the Book of Exodus, along with many laws, which 
were given at Sinai. " Behold, I send an angel before 
thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into 
the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and 
obey his voice, provoke him not ; for he will not par- 
don your transgressions : for my name is in him. But 
if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I 
speak ; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and 
an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine angel 
shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amo- 
rites and the Hittites." 

When then by the letter of the Scripture it would 



THE SPIRIT. 405 

seem as though God had been seen or heard, it is to be 
understood that it was through his angel that God was 
manifested. No doubt, in the preceding text, there is 
implied a philosophy of revelation which has not been 
common, for many ages ; but it is not therefore the less 
certainly Scriptural : and it is indeed the philosophy 
of the Spirit. 

Seven hundred years later than the giving of the 
Decalogue at Sinai, was this utterance through Isaiah 
the prophet, as to the Lord, and the angel of God. 
" For he said, Surely they are my people, children that 
will not lie : so he was their Saviour. In all their 
affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence 
saved them : in his love and in his pity he redeemed 
them ; and he bare them, and carried them all the days 
of old. But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit." 
Later still than these words by three hundred years, 
were the prophecies of Malachi. The last of the proph- 
ets he was. And the Spirit as it spake through him 
anticipated the Gospel. And the following words 
would seem to foretell that the inauguration of Chris- 
tianity would, in some way, be attended by that angel 
of God who had been "the angel of his presence" for 
the Israelites. " Behold, I will send my messenger, and 
he shall prepare the way before me : and the Lord, 
whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, 
even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight 
in : behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." 
What a strange and wonderful utterance this is to 
think upon ! It is the Spirit speaking from afar off, 
but for effect at the present day, almost as though in 
an unknown tongue. For it implies probably knowl- 



406 THE SPIRIT. 

edge which is lost, though not perhaps irrecoverably. 
The words of that prophecy are to be read to-day by 
the natural eye. But some time they will be spirit- 
ually discerned ; and then they will be like an angel 
testifying as to the Gospel, from his own connection 
with it. 

In the Scriptures, then, an angel of God is God him- 
self, as it were. And it would seem also as though a 
spirit in the service of God might some time have 
been accounted as the Spirit of God. And this per- 
haps is an import of the phrase which is illustrated by 
the saying of a Jewish Babbi, as quoted by Lightfoot, 
in his Horm Hebraicce et Talmudicce. The Jews be- 
lieved anciently that a man who wished to become a 
diviner might get a demon or unclean spirit to enter 
him, by a preparation of the nervous system through 
fasting, and by waiting in a graveyard. Said the 
Eabbi Akibah, "Does the unclean spirit come upon 
him that fasts for that very end, that the unclean 
spirit may come upon him ? Much more would the 
Holy Spirit come upon him that fasts for that very 
end that the Holy Spirit might come upon him." But 
more precisely still to the point is the statement of 
Lightfoot that "the seven spirits" was an ancient 
phrase with the Jews for the Holy Ghost ; and that 
that is the meaning of the words in the Book of Beve- 
lation. "Grace be unto you, and peace, from him 
which is, and which was, and which is to come ; and 
from the seven Spirits which are before the throne ; 
and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, 
and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of 
the kings of the earth." Of the manifestation of the 



THE SPIRIT. 407 

Spirit, prophecy was one form. But by St. John 
it is distinctly implied that spirits from the spiritual 
world might be the manifestation of the Spirit of God. 
" Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits 
whether they are of God : because many false proph- 
ets are gone .out into the world. Hereby know ye 
the Spirit of God : every spirit that confesseth that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God ; and every 
spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in 
the flesh is not of God." Also, that the Spirit may 
manifest itself through individual spirits, and through 
the manner in which those disembodied, invisible 
spirits may actuate human beings, appears by the 
words of St. Paul, addressed to the church at Corinth, 
as to how people were to behave during an actual 
manifestation of the Spirit. " Let the prophets speak 
two or three, and let the other judge. If anything be 
revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold 
his peace. For ye may all prophesy one by one, that 
all may learn, and all may be comforted. And the 
spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." 
Hence, it would seem as though sometimes and for 
some purposes spirits might be the channels between 
men and God for the Holy Ghost, and be indeed 
themselves as spirits, the manifestation of the Spirit. 
Among the gifts of the Spirit to the early Church, one 
was " discerning of spirits," or an instinct as to in- 
spiration, — ability for knowing the quality of the 
influence from which a prophet might speak. 

The spirits by whom the prophets were made to 
prophesy in the early days of the church at Corinth, 
may perhaps have been some of them of another 



408 THE SPIRIT. 

nationality than the Jewish, or of some age earlier 
than that of the captivity. And thence perhaps may 
have resulted the phenomenon of persons speaking in 
unknown tongues. It does not seem necessary to sup- 
pose that always these tongues were absolutely new, or 
even certainly foreign to this earth. Commonly they 
may simply have been unknown languages to such 
persons as were present to hear them. And indeed 
just as the spirits who were attendant on the prophets 
were to be restrained as to utterance at times, so also 
were these unknown tongues to " keep silence in the 
church/' unless there were interpreters present. This 
speaking in unknown tongues would seem to have 
been somewhat of an incidental manifestation of the 
Spirit. Says St. Paul to the Corinthians, " I thank 
my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all ; yet 
in the church, I had rather speak five words with my 
understanding " — what a positive saying ! — " than ten 
thousand words in an unknown tongue." And as to 
the nature or manner of these tongues, as they were 
spoken with, perhaps there may be some suggestion 
latent in those words, which Paul could imagine might 
be true as to himself, when he said, " Though I speak 
with the tongues of men and of angels." 

And analogous with what precedes is the remark 
by Maimonides, on the subject of prophecy, that " on 
a man intelligent, wise, holy, removed from all worldly 
associations, and absorbed by heavenly contemplations, 
the Holy Spirit will rest : that he intermingles with that 
grade of angels called ' ishim,' and becomes quite a dif- 
ferent being from what he was before." That the Holy 
Spirit might come on a holy man, from his being in af- 



THE SPIRIT. 409 

finity with holy angels, was the doctrine of a Jewish 
Eabbi of the twelfth century. He is still accounted 
the greatest Eabbi that has ever been : and he prob- 
ably read his Bible by light as purely Jewish almost, 
as though it had been from the seven-branched candle- 
stick. 

Said John the Baptist as to Jesus, " God giveth not the 
Spirit by measure unto him." And Jesus said of him- 
self what apparently was the same thing in other words, * 
" Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels 
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of 
man." It is noticeable that the words of Jesus, as to 
the angels, are the same words which are used in Gen- 
esis, in the history of that vision which Jacob had, as 
to the nearness of God. " Behold a ladder set up on 
the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven : and 
behold the angels of God ascending and descending on 
it." Carrying prayers heavenwards, and bringing back 
answers and help, " the angels of God ascending and 
descending " would seem to be at times the same as 
the Holy Spirit. And indeed are not angels under 
God, like "the seven spirits which are before his 
throne " ; and " are they not all ministering spirits, 
sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of 
salvation ? " 

The Spirit must have laws and ways of which mere 
mortals can never possibly know. Besults from it 
they may experience personally, while yet the man- 
ner thereof may transcend all conjecture. Till within 
the last two or three hundred years, universally men 
had lived and died in ignorance that blood is reddened 
and vitalized by the process of breathing. And so it 
18 



410 THE SPIRIT. 

may well be supposed that the philosophy of human 
nature, spiritually, will never be known perfectly by 
anybody in the flesh. With an unperverted man, 
prayer is as truly an instinct as breathing is. But as 
to how prayer is power, and as to how God feels it, as 
man breathes it, mortal man may never know ; nor is it 
necessary that he should. Indeed, it cannot be other- 
wise, religiously, than that we ought to be confident as 
to some things which we cannot see. We may be 
ever so prosperous in this world, and great, but yet as 
human beings, we are at our best and truest only when 
"we walk by faith, not by sight." And to persons 
who live more sublimely than they can possibly know, 
and as " kings and priests unto God and the Father," 
there must occur things higher as to origin than what 
they can possibly trace ; because spirits living by the 
Spirit have infinite, and infinitely various connec- 
tions. 

It has already been quoted, in another connection, 
what was the last prophecy of the last of the prophets. 
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the 
coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." 
Four hundred years after this prophecy was on parch- 
ment, Jesus said as to John the Baptist, " What went 
ye out for to see ? A prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, 
and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it 
is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy 
face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." And 
then Jesus added, "If ye will receive it, this is Elias, 
which was for to come." 

Elijah back again on the earth, after more than eight 
hundred years ! So indeed it would seem that men 



THE SPIRIT. 411 

might have thought. And if there be any connection 
between this world below and the world above, as to 
intercommunicating agencies, it may well have been, 
that Elijah of the age of Ahab and Jezebel, who had 
vanished from earth, on a highway of the Spirit, and in 
a chariot like fire, might have been expected to " first 
come and restore all things " against the coming of the 
Messiah and the kingdom of heaven. And of his near- 
ness to the earth and his connection certainly with 
Jesus, the narrative of the Transfiguration is evidence, 
wherein it is written, " Behold there talked with him 
two men, which were Moses and Elias : who appeared 
in glory, and spake of his decease which he should 
accomplish at Jerusalem." 

Moses and Elias then had known of Jesus in their 
world, and had conversed together about him, many a 
time probably, before they were seen talking with him 
on the Mount. And, no doubt, their discourse as to 
his decease was from their angelic foreknowledge, and 
from their sensitiveness as to that Spirit, through which 
an acorn is an oak-tree in a shell, and Christianity is 
the development of Judaism, and the world of to-day 
is the germ of some distant millennium. 

But Moses and Elias knowing of Jesus, so as to 
meet him on the Mount ! Certainly, there are persons 
to be startled by that wording of the fact, who, all their 
lives, have been reading of it in the Bible, very de- 
voutly indeed, but yet very thoughtlessly. Moses and 
Elias in glory not know of Jesus of Nazareth ! They 
must have known of him, and of the purpose as to 
which one day he would say, " For this cause came I 
unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." And Moses 



412 THE SPIRIT. 

and Elias may well have been not only knowing of 
Jesus, but concerned also with his way and work in 
the world. For, indeed, — another thing so often read 
and so seldom believed, — actually "there is joy in 
the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that 
repenteth." That grace which had reached the earth 
in the person of Jesus Christ, — it may well be that 
Moses and Elias had been accessory to it, and that 
they had even, during the captivity in Babylon, been 
inquiring among the spirits of the prophets Ezekiel, 
Malachi, and Isaiah, " searching what or what manner 
of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did 
signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of 
Christ, and the glory that should follow." 

It should be observed, what is rarely and almost 
never noticed, that on the Mount at the time of the 
Transfiguration, what happened was seen by Peter, 
James, and John in a vision, and while they were in a 
trance-like state. " And as they came down from the 
mountain, Jesus charged them saying, Tell the vision 
to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from 
the dead." They had seen in a vision, and after an 
unearthly manner, just as afterwards "Cornelius saw 
in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day 
an angel of God coming in to him " ; and just also as, 
by a corresponding vision, Peter was prepared for hear- 
ing of what had happened to Cornelius the devout 
centurion ; because having gone up upon the housetop 
to pray, " he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened." 
And similarly, Daniel says as to the commencement 
of a revelation which was made to him from an angel, 
that his strength failed him, " And when I heard the 



THE SPIRIT. 413 

voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my 
face." That sleep was of the body, merely, and not 
of the soul. It was the same state as that in which 
Abraham was, when a covenant was made with him 
by the Lord ; and when " as the sun was going down a 
deep sleep fell upon Abram." 

That sleep or fitness for visions is something like 
the same thing, apparently, as being " in the Spirit." 
It is a condition in which the ear is closed against 
thunder, and in which the eye is as though it were 
dead, and in which the skin is insensible even to fire. 
It is a state in which the soul is purely itself, and 
hears through its spiritual ears, and sees through its 
spiritual eyes, and is conscious of another atmosphere 
than this of earth. 

Also then being " in the Spirit " means often, being 
in a state in which the body is nothing, and through 
which, also, the soul is among spirits and may see- 
angels. At the time of the conversion of St. Paul, 
Ananias told him, "The God of our fathers hath 
chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and 
see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his 
mouth." And now how were- these words made good ; 
and how was Jesus Christ seen by Paul? This is 
what Paul himself says : " And it came to pass, that, 
when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I 
prayed in the temple, I was in a trance ; and I saw 
him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly 
out of Jerusalem ; for they will not receive thy testi- 
mony concerning me." And that the trance which he 
wrote of is as though his body had been abolished for 
a time, or as though the soul's connection had been sus- 



414 THE SPIRIT. 

pended with it, is plain by what St. Paul says as to his 
having been in Paradise, when he heard things, which, 
though he might have felt, he was unable to utter for 
want of words. The Principia of Newton never have 
been and never can be translated into Erse. Nor 
possibly, therefore, could the sublimities which Paul 
heard in Paradise have been reducible into Greek, 
by any human skill. And as to that abnormal state 
which he experienced, his words about it are for sim- 
plicity almost as wonderful as what he narrates. And 
indeed they are the words of a man familiar with mir- 
acles. These are the words : " I knew a man in Christ 
above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I can- 
not tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: 
God knoweth), such an one caught up to the third 
heaven." 

During the trance which Paul had in the temple, at 
Jerusalem, it is possible that his spirit may have 
parted from his body, and by some spiritual law may 
have reached either Paradise or the third heaven, like 
a ray of light. But also it is conceivable that while 
Paul was entranced in the temple, his soul may simply 
have been wearing the body like insensate clothes, and 
been receiving some influence from above, by which 
it became more and more intensely spiritual, and by 
which also it found itself successively in affinity with 
one heaven, and another, and even a third. And of 
that preternatural experience, as to the manner, either 
understanding well corresponds with such texts as 
these, in the Book of Eevelation, " Immediately I was 
in the spirit," and " He carried me away in the spirit." 

This being " in the Spirit " would seem to be con- 



THE SPIRIT. 415 

currently with nature. Man by his nature is capable 
of intromission as to spirit, and of being caught up 
into Paradise, and of hearing what the Spirit says, and 
what also angels may have to say or show. And in 
regard to revelation, the deep sleep of the body which 
was experienced by prophets and apostles may have 
been but a consequence of their souls having been 
intensely quickened in some way, at some point. 
For often persons, with great excitement, mentally, 
have found that there had been thunder without their 
notice, and that even they had been severely wounded, 
without knowing that they had been struck. And in- 
deed many times, martyrs and confessors have tes- 
tified, as to their having had no sense of pain, while 
the torturers were at work upon them. 

But how are men approached or reached or affected 
by the Spirit ? In many ways perhaps, and contin- 
gently on many conditions, as to person, time and 
place ; as indeed may well be supposed, when it is re- 
membered how persons differ from one another, men- 
tally, and by education and by nationality, — and also 
how men of the same descent must necessarily be dif- 
ferenced by the varying tone of the successive cen- 
turies into which they are born. 

In one age, a man may live by the Holy Ghost, and 
be strong and joyful in it, without a wish for a miracle 
or a thought of one. While in another age, a man 
cannot think but that he grows from birth to death 
simply from out of his earthly self, like a plant rooted 
in the earth ; and for him, therefore, some gift of the 
spirit, or some miracle or sign, might be of infinite im- 
portance, as a thing for thought ; because of its mani- 



416 THE SPIRIT. 

festing a connection for him with a world invisible of 
spirit. 

A royal miscreant like Ahab was not approachable 
by the Spirit, as though he had been some " bruised 
reed." Isaac, the patriarch and shepherd, may have 
been capable of having the Lord appear to him in a 
vision, in the night, while yet he may have been 
utterly incapable of having the Spirit of the Lord 
breathe through him, for the wording and soul of a 
psalm. Just before his death, Jacob was more fully 
prophetic than in all his life before. "And Jacob 
called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves to- 
gether, that I may tell you that which shall befall you 
in the last day." And why, and how was this ? It 
was because almost his spirit was inside of the spir- 
itual world, and was within hearing perhaps of the 
angel of the covenant ; and it was because he would 
within a few minutes have " gathered up his feet into 
the bed, and yielded up the ghost." 

Before the prophet Samuel was called, there had 
been a time, for the Jews, when " there was no open 
vision." And that time would seem to have been so 
long as that even there had occurred with it a change 
in the use of words. For, in connection with Samuel, 
it is to be read, that in Israel " he that is now called a 
prophet was beforetime called, a seer." And indeed it 
was not because of a long time having elapsed, or be- 
cause of mere worldly craving, that ever the word of 
the Lord was vouchsafed. Nor ever was the Spirit 
receivable by everybody alike. While the Jews were 
yet on their journey from Egypt to the promised land, 
the Lord had said, by way of magnifying Moses, over 



THE SPIRIT. 417 

his successors, * If there be a prophet among you, I the 
Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, 
and will speak unto him in a dream/' Before there 
can he a revelation from the highest, there must be a 
receptive state in some person on the earth. And it is 
but a development of this truth, according to the phi- 
losophy of revelation, to say that certain persons of a 
prophetic temperament, must have been faithful to 
their nature and have been welcomed among their 
fellow-creatures, before God can draw nigh to men 
through the Spirit, rather than by convulsion, pes- 
tilence, and the terrors of the Lord, or by that penal 
blindness, which is none the less fearful because it 
does not know of itself. 

As to the preceding statement, worldly objection of 
any kind is nothing. What is all the state of Boeotia 
to-day, in comparison with Homer ? Poetry is a 
mighty influence ; for it glorifies the earth and man's 
life in it ; and it can prepare in the mind the way of 
the Lord. And yet not every man, but only one man 
in the seventeenth century, was born with a soul 
which could so live on earth as to leave behind, on its 
departure, the works and the glory of John Milton. 

Thoughts from on high as to God, or high thoughts 
concerning God, can reach mankind only through such 
minds as may, at any time, be open and willing to 
receive them. This gentle manner of approach is not 
however of necessity. Though certainly the way of the 
Spirit, in this world, at present, would be confusion 
worse than what happened at the tower of Babel, and 
would even be suffering worse than what the Israelites 
were punished with, in the desert, but that it is tem- 
18* AA 



418 THE SPIRIT. 

pered for us and administered, by what in a Christian 
way, may be called the fatherhood of God. And in- 
deed the condescension of God, toward this world, as 
he wraps it about and fills it with his Spirit, is not by 
acts dating from eras, but it is continuous, and like a 
stream, for " ho, every one that thirsteth." 

Man must think of God, before he can feel that God 
remembers him. " Draw nigh to God, and he will 
draw nigh to you." A lonely disciple is not without 
Christ, and yet also these words are not a mere truism, 
however they may be interpreted, " where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the 
midst of them." And in these words, there is some- 
thing spiritual meant, and beyond what Novalis may 
have intended intellectually when he said, " Certainly 
my belief gains infinitely as to strength, as soon as it is 
shared by another person." 

" The assembling of yourselves together " is a form 
of waiting for the Spirit, whether or not it be so under- 
stood by mere church-goers. Men are approachable by 
the Spirit, not only as individuals, but as societies. 
Any day, by the mysterious alchemy of the universe, 
seekers after God may suddenly have their earnestness 
open out into the Spirit, and have the Spirit come in 
upon them. And with taking " sweet counsel together," 
and walking " unto the house of God in company," and 
with looking steadfastly towards heaven, Christians are 
in a way to see it open, and to have their hearts fill 
with a strange, unearthly joy in the Holy Ghost. " He 
that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that 
he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." 
And so also is it as to the Spirit. It was on believers 



THE SPIRIT. 419 

in an expectant attitude, and on those who did " wait 
for the promise of the rather/' that the Spirit was 
poured forth, after the ascension of Jesus Christ. They 
were drawn together by their faith ; and the thoughts 
of all of them were conjointly a longing expectation. 
" And when the day of Pentecost was come, they were 
all with one accord in one place." 

According to the Scriptures then the Spirit was that 
of which there can be an outpouring in one age and 
a dearth in another. It is what can be imparted to a 
man, and what can be withdrawn from him, and it is 
what also he can quench as to himself. Occasionally, 
also, it is what can be imparted by one man to another, 
not however as arbitrary grace, but only like some an- 
gelic whisper, for the inmost being of the recipient. 
In the evening after his resurrection, the disciples be- 
ing assembled together in a room, of which the doors 
were closed for fear of the Jews, Jesus became present 
among them and breathed on them, and said, " Eeceive 
ye the Holy Ghost." The Holy Spirit was also com- 
municable, occasionally, by the apostles, through their 
hands, while placed on right-minded persons. Arguing 
with the high priest and the council, at a very early 
day in the Church, Peter said of the Holy Ghost that 
it was what " God hath given to them that obey him." 
And at a later period than this, when Peter was preach- 
ing to hearers who were not all of them Jews by blood, 
to the astonishment of them of the circumcision, " the 
Holy Ghost fell on all them w T hich heard the word." 
Spiritual affinity had met the Spirit, through the agency 
of Peter, at Csesarea, and then and there and thereby 
began to be fulfilled that promise which was made to 



420 THE SPIRIT. 

Abraham by the Lord, almost twenty centuries before, 
" I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless 
thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a 
blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and 
curse him that curseth thee ; and in thee shall all fam- 
ilies of the earth be blessed." Also apart from all hu- 
man agency, and at all times and everywhere, on the 
assurance of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is what can 
certainly and even perhaps suddenly be obtained by 
everybody, by prayer. " If ye then, being evil, know 
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much 
more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him ? " 

The Spirit of God may be poured out on men, in 
multitudes ; or it may spread from heart to heart like 
a flame ; or by possessing itself of the body of some 
man, it may even speak expressly. It may reach one 
man, like some " word of the Lord " suddenly revealed 
in the mind ; and to another man it may be imparted 
by angelic agency. It may strike a man with convic- 
tion, while he is in a crowd : and conceivably it may 
get lodged with him, during deep sleep, when some- 
times God " openeth the ears of men and sealeth their 
instruction, that he may withdraw man from his pur- 
pose, and hide pride from man." 

The Spirit is always the selfsame, but in operation 
it may be of infinite diversity. And for this reason , 
it is variously described. The Spirit is the Holy 
Ghost ; but the Holy Ghost is a phrase, which cannot 
always be used for the Spirit of God. Chaos became 
order and was made to blossom with beauty, and the 
heavens around were garnished by the Spirit of God, 



THE SPIRIT. 421 

but not by the Holy Spirit; because fire and water, 
trees and animals, are all alike incapable of holiness ; 
and so too are all the stars, however they may differ 
from one another in glory. Prophetically what came 
upon Balaam was the Spirit of God ; and it was by the 
same Spirit that prophets and apostles were inspired : 
but if in them it was the Holy Spirit and differed 
from what Balaam felt, it was because of their having 
been better men than he, and sensitive to holiness ; 
and because it was, as it is written, " holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 

In the Gospel of John, the following words were 
spoken, with a view to the distress which the disciples 
were soon to feel, and what also would be their need 
of instruction. And in these passages the Spirit is the 
Holy Ghost, and it is the Comforter, and also it is the 
Spirit of truth. " I will pray the Father, and he shall 
give you another Comforter, that he may abide with 
you forever ; even the Spirit of truth." And then 
soon afterwards Jesus says, " The Comforter, which is 
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things, and shall bring all 
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said 
unto you." 

In the New Testament, what is " the Spirit of your 
Father," as mentioned by Matthew, is " the Holy 
Ghost " as recorded by Luke. 

Men are reached by the Spirit, on one plane and 
another. As walking, thinking, working creatures on 
the earth, " the inspiration of the Almighty giveth 
them understanding." But for men " in the image of 
God created," the Spirit can be the Holy Spirit. And 



422 THE SPIRIT, 

by still other persons, the Spirit of God can be felt 
like the spirit of the Son of God, for tenderness and 
encouragement, and sweet loving assurance. And to 
men who feel as Jesus felt, and who feel also that cer- 
tainly it cannot be otherwise than that " the Father 
loveth the Son," Paul would say, as though it were the 
way of the universe, " and because ye are sons, God 
hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, 
crying, Abba, Father." 

God, that made all things, is " all things to all men " 
to a greater extent than ever Paul was made. From 
north to south, from the earth to the sun, and from one 
sun to another, it is by the Spirit of God, that the uni- 
verse is coherent. And it is by the same Spirit, that 
men are made to differ, and the stars also from one 
another in glory, and one era on this earth from an- 
other, as time wears on. When the beasts of the field 
were made, it was by the Spirit, but not by as much 
of the Spirit of God as what created man in his own 
image. And man, as he lives, is more and more recep- 
tive of that Spirit. 

There are persons who believe in the Spirit as a 
pious word, but cannot conceive of it as an actuality 
which concerns them. And there are some who say 
scornfully, "What sign is there of the Spirit, any 
more than there is of spirit, at all ? A mere Hebra- 
ism ! Who but the Jews ever thought of it ? And 
what way is there by which it could ever get at us ? 
There is no possibility of it between us and the sun ; 
and under the earth, there is certainly nothing of the 
kind." But now the argument from ignorance is good 
only as it is used by persons who know a great deal, 
which those scornful ones never do. 



THE SPIRIT. 423 

The susceptibilities of human nature as to spiritual 
action, are many, as may perhaps have already ap- 
peared. And additionally this is conceivable. As the 
body is the case of the soul, so may animal magnet- 
ism serve for the corporeity of the Spirit, sometimes, 
and for one or two purposes. Just as it is written as 
to Peter and John among the Samaritans, " Then laid 
they their hands on them, and they received the Holy 
Ghost." 

But indeed myself already I am spiritually in- 
sphered, and so I have been ever since I was born as 
a living soul. It is true, as I look up, that there is 
nothing between me and the sun, for such eyes as I 
can open as yet. Nor is it likely that ever my spirit- 
ual sight will be opened, till I shall have got through 
the valley of the shadow of death. But still if I 
could look to-day, with those eyes, through which it is 
possible that hereafter I may even see Uriel in the 
sun, I should discern between this earth and the al- 
tered look of that luminary, at various distances, signs 
probably of principalities and powers, and ways of com- 
munication with the New Jerusalem ; and I should be 
sensible of the magic properties of another atmosphere 
than this of earth ; and I might thereby also perhaps 
become conscious of strange affinities drawing me like 
old friendships, towards Paul or Dante ; and toward 
some angel, who may at some time have encamped 
about me in a time of trouble, without my knowledge ; 
or toward some remote ancestor, whose name I may 
never have heard of; or toward some spirit, whose 
course in his earthly life was marked by like lines with 
my own ; or toward some fellow-Christian, who may 



424 THE SPIRIT. 

have thrilled, in church, without my knowledge, to 
the same movement of the Spirit as what quickened 
me. 

Is it said that there is no avenue for the Spirit, as 
to human nature ? It might as well be said that there 
is no channel in the air, whereby words can pass from 
man to man ! 

The universe is alive with the Spirit and with spirit- 
ual occupants, and has always been thought to be so, 
except by a few people now and then, and here and 
there, — persons of a nature somewhat elephantine as 
to outlook, and unfortunate as to education. Accord- 
ing to an old word for a prejudice on the subject, 
there are those who cannot believe in the existence of 
spirit. There have been persons, especially in France, 
who have been even bigoted against a belief in human 
immortality or in spirit. During the first half of this 
century, magnetism was ardently studied in France, 
but when it began to give signs of being spiritually 
connected, some of its greatest adepts were shocked 
and scandalized as being men of " the world that now 
is." The Baron Dupotet was so affected ; but yet he 
could not but say, " There is an agent in space, whence 
we ourselves, our inspiration and our intelligence pro- 
ceed ; and that agent is the spiritual world which sur- 
rounds us." Those are the words of a French adept 
and scholar as to magnetism, and which were true to 
his own knowledge, as he thought. And these words 
following are by Confucius, the contemporary, indeed, 
of the prophets Zechariah and Haggai, but yet who was 
also a Chinese, " An ocean of invisible intelligences 
surrounds us." Plotinus has been quoted in opposi- 



THE SPIRIT. 425 

tion to Christ and the apostles by anti-supernaturalists, 
who apparently were quite unaware of his claims to 
be an ecstatic. But Plotinus said, what, no doubt, was 
of his own experience, as he believed, " All things are 
full of demons," or in plain English, "Everywhere 
there are spirits." 

This spirituality of the universe is the testimony of 
almost all tribes and nations, in every age. It was the 
persuasion of Greece, and Egypt, and Chaldea. Under 
the light, conjointly of history and criticism, what the 
Scriptures were especially given to teach is not the re- 
ality of the spiritual world, as many people think, but 
rather the certainty and nature and operation of the 
Spirit of God, or the Holy Ghost. 

It is of the nature of the godhead, that it should be 
always revealing itself, in one way and another ; in 
the make of a diamond, in the beauty of a fern ; in 
the cry of a young raven and the manner in which it 
gets answered ; in the appearance of the first man on 
earth ; and in that glimmer of Providence, which is 
perceptible on the stream of time historically, and which 
to some eyes is as dubious as phosphorescence, and yet 
still as certain. 

Geology is science as to the Spirit of God, while it 
was shaping the earth. And the Bible is the history 
of the Spirit, in its relations with man. The tent of 
Abraham, the sojourn in Egypt, the captivity in Baby- 
lon, Moriah, and the lake of Galilee are but accessories 
to the history. The Old Testament and the New are 
a revelation of every man to himself, through the 
Spirit, and a revelation also of the eternal Spirit as it 
acts in time. 



426 THE SPIRIT. 

And now perhaps we are in a way, wherein can be 
resumed more intelligently what was being discussed 
about Elijah as the forerunner of Jesus Christ. And 
it should be remembered, that what is now being con- 
sidered is in connection with the reign of the Spirit, 
made visible. During the transfiguration, the disciples 
saw Elias in the spiritual world, and so when Jesus 
referred to his death, as being perhaps not far off, "his 
disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the Scribes 
that Elias must first come ? And Jesus answered and 
said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore 
all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come al- 
ready, and they knew him not, and have done unto 
him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the 
Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples under- 
stood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist." 
John the Baptist was a man like any other Jew, and 
yet also he was Elias. The philosophy of this matter 
is the same as that which was entertained by the sons 
of the prophets, after Elijah had vanished in heaven, 
when they said, " The spirit of Elijah doth rest on 
Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed them- 
selves to the ground before him." And so according 
to this account, John the Baptist, in the flesh, may in 
some way possibly have been influenced by Elijah, 
while dwelling in a state altogether foreign to flesh 
and blood, and sun, moon and stars. For the spirit 
indeed, time and space are nothing, or nearly so ; while 
sameness of mind or spiritual affinity may, under 
God, be almost everything. 

But why should John the Baptist have been inspired 
by Elias, or in any way have been Elias ? It was, no 



THE SPIRIT. 427 

doubt, because of the spiritual constitution of the uni- 
verse. And thereby it was not an exceptional event, 
but was in conformity with other things, which concern 
us, and of which some perhaps affect us frequently. 
In Patmos, John received a revelation from an angel, 
which revelation the angel had received from Jesus 
Christ. And it was in a similar manner, probably, that 
Elijah was concerned with Christ, as making the Bap- 
tist " go before him in the spirit and power of Ellas.'' 
And indeed the whole ministration of the w x orld, in- 
tellectually, morally, and spiritually, is largely by me- 
diation. For when influences from above reach men, 
commonly it is through a certain few, who are like 
mediators for the rest. And according to St. Paul, not 
only was the law " ordained by angels," but also it was 
" in the hand of a mediator." 

It was by the foreknowledge of God, and through 
the operation of spiritual laws no doubt, and of his 
own free-will also, that Elijah was the spirit and power 
of John the son of Zacharias the priest. But now 
Elias had left the earth nine hundred years, when he 
intervened through the Baptist. And yet also, nine- 
teen hundred years before Jesus was born, there had 
been " preached before the gospel unto Abraham." 

Often on earth, that which is a mystery of the king- 
dom of heaven had its beginning with the Spirit, and 
is outside of the reach of mere reason, and is what 
only the Spirit can ever show, or even hint about. 

According to the Book of Eevelation, " Behold the 
tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with 
them, and they shall be his people." In a state of 
more or less intelligence Archbishop Fenelon, Jacob 



428 THE SPIRIT. 

Bohme, George Fox, and William Law, and Sweden- 
borg, and Charles Wesley and his brother John, and 
multitudes, more or less like them, have entered into 
the court itself of that temple, during the last two or 
three hundred years. But nevertheless, one generation 
after another, for, now, a long time, while Christians 
have been going up to the temple for worship, com- 
monly they have had but a poor belief, and often none 
whatever, as to the holy of holies, and the positive, 
kind, familiar, human nearness of the Spirit. 

The holy of holies ! Now under Christ Jesus, the 
actual place of it is in the soul itself, if only men had 
faith in it, and could believe in the Spirit. 

And indeed it is in the Spirit, and from the Spirit, 
that man is to live to all eternity, and even just as he 
does already. For, truly the human body is the high- 
est formation of the Spirit which there is in connec- 
tion with this earth. And indeed, optically, diamonds 
of the purest water are but ancient experiments in the 
workshop of nature, with a view to the human eye. 

The recent discoveries, through which the powers of 
nature lend themselves to human use, and under the 
application of which the fields grow more fertile, and 
the depths of the earth yield up their treasures, are 
often spoken of, as nature unveiling herself. Nature 
unveiling herself, — what is that ? thou poor idol- 
ater of second causes, what is nature ? Nature is but 
one of the lower titles of God. And " nature unveiling 
herself," if it means anything, means the Spirit of 
God, revealing itself of its own good- will on a plane 
which is level with human intellect. 

But, at its best, what is all that eases our bodily 



THE SPIRIT. 429 

life, or even that glorifies existence for us, as mere 
denizens of this earth, in comparison with that reve- 
lation of the Spirit, of which man spiritually is sus- 
ceptible ? Fearfully and wonderfully made as man is 
as to his body, he is yet more wonderful still as to his 
soul. And of all the creatures that have ever been on 
this earth, man only is what can answer, in any way, 
to the fatherhood of God. And we human creatures, 
at this late time, ought to be able to understand read- 
ily the meaning of St. Paul, when he asks, " Know ye 
not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit 
of God dwellethinyou?" 



JESUS AND THE SPIEIT. 

• 

THIS essay is simply what it purports to be, and is 
not a treatise on Christology. 

During his stay in the wilderness, Jesus was quali- 
fied for his work, by having his spirit tried to the utter- 
most by what he was to preach against. His trial was 
probably like the trial of Abraham as to his faith, and 
was while his soul was in a state wherein it was exer- 
cised independently of his bodily senses, and irrespec- 
tively of geographical limitations. And if that condition 
should be called a state of vision, it should be remem- 
bered that a vision differs from a dream much more 
widely and profoundly than even waking does. From 
out of his inmost being Jesus withstood that concen- 
tration of all temptation, for which as to subtlety the 
word is Satan. " And he was there in the wilderness 
forty days, tempted of Satan ; and with the wild 
beasts : and the angels ministered unto llim.' , 

On his reappearance, after his seclusion in the des- 
ert, he received a message from John the Baptist. The 
day of the Lord is light only for the children of light. 
And by some persons it is never known of while it is 
passing. John the Baptist was to be famous forever, 
in connection with the gospel, and yet for discern- 
ment, spiritually, of the time in which he was living, 
" he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 431 

than lie." John was the forerunner of Jesus, and also 
he had borne " record, saying, I saw the Spirit descend- 
ing from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him " ; 
and yet " when John had heard in the prison the 
works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said 
unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look 
for another ? " It was a " day of visitation." It. was 
the time of the Spirit, and by the Spirit, judgment 
was to be formed. John, as well as Jesus, was 
withinside of its sphere. John was in mortal danger 
of his life ; and Jesus probably felt that he was 
himself on the way to Calvary ; and so, as though 
death were nothing, because of the surrounding light 
from heaven, " Jesus answered and said unto them, Go 
and show John again those things which ye do hear 
and see ; the blind receive their sight, and the lame 
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the 
dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel 
preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall 
not be offended in me." 

This answer to John was exactly like the claim 
which he had made on his return from the wilderness. 
He had taught in various synagogues acceptably. 
' • And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought 
up : and as his custom was, he went into the syna- 
gogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 
And there was delivered unto him the book of the 
prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he 
found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to 
preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to 
heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 



432 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set 
at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the accepta- 
ble year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he 
gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the 
eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fas- 
tened on him. And he began to say unto them, This 
day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all 
bare him witness and wondered at the gracious words 
which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is 
not this Joseph's son ? " Those gracious words are not 
to be known of now ; but it would seem, that in some 
way, they were provocative, as they were thought 
about. And then miracles, like what had been heard 
of, from Capernaum, would seem to have been ex- 
pected. And thereupon by Jesus, it was stated that a 
miracle was not a thing for everybody, nor forthcoming 
always at demand. Very instructive is the narrative 
of this matter by Luke. More and more devilish 
always does the spirit of the world become with argu- 
ing against the Spirit of God. And so it was, that in 
his own city, on a Sabbath day, and after having been 
admired for his gracious utterance, that Jesus was in 
danger from all who heard him, for " they led him unto 
the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that 
they might cast him down headlong." 

In the synagogue on that Sabbath day, as Jesus read 
and spoke, it was because of his having " returned in 
the power of the Spirit into Galilee." The power of 
the Spirit ! what was that ? It was the same thing as 
what is implied in this text, "And Jesus being full 
of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was 
led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 433 

tempted of the devil." It was that controlling, inspir- 
ing power, by wdiich, on account of his nature, it is 
conceivable that practically he may have been like 
almightiness in a robe of clay, and like omniscience, 
as far as the scanty words of a poor dialect could af- 
ford it utterance. Said Jesus of himself, " He whom 
God hath sent speaketh the words of God : for God 
giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. The 
Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into 
his hand." And as further illustrating this union of 
Jesus with the Father, by the Spirit, for the manifesta- 
tion of the Father on earth, Jesus said, " The Father 
loveth the Son, and show^eth him all things that him- 
self doeth : and he will show him greater works than 
these, that ye may marveL" 

As used by Jesus, the phrase, "the Father that 
dwelleth in me," would seem to be of the same import 
as " the Spirit of the Lord is upon me." And like 
this variety of phrase is w^hat follows. In the Gospel 
of Mark, Jesus tells his disciples, " Whatsoever shall 
be given you in that hour, that speak ye : for it is not 
ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." But according to 
Matthew it was worded thus, " For it is not ye that 
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in 

you." 

After his temptation, Jesus " returned in the power 
of the Spirit into Galilee." It may help to elucidate 
the phrase, to remember that Simeon was a just man 
and devout, and one of whom it is written that " the 
Holy Ghost was upon him," and that at the presenta- 
tion of Jesus, " he came by the Spirit into the tem- 
ple." 

19 BB 



434 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

To the modern mind it is something strange, and a 
thing to be challenged, that Jesus should have arrived 
in Galilee " in the power of the Spirit." Whereas the 
phrase was easily and naturally intelligible till within 
less than the last two hundred years ; and indeed had 
been so in every age of that spiritual descent, by 
which we Christians derive from Abraham. 

As to familiarity of belief, connecting heaven with 
earth, first an angel disappeared, and then a spirit be- 
came improbable, and then by degrees the Holy Ghost 
became less and less intelligible, and more and more 
limited as to what it might seem to mean. And this 
has been as a murky effect of those various philoso- 
phies of a materialistic origin, which have obtained 
during the last two hundred years. It is at this point 
that the records of revelation are liable to be obscured 
to minds thus accidentally darkened. But the relia- 
bility of the Scriptures, as^o meaning, is not therefore 
invalidated. For a dictionary may be lost ; but if it 
should be found again, and answer its purpose as an 
interpreter, it is not therefore the less trustworthy. 
And indeed the mere records of Christianity, with 
their multitudinous corroborations, historical and psy- 
chological, are in the high court of reason, and by 
comparison, far superior, as to credibility, to all the ev- 
idences, on the strength of which geology prides itself. 
But apart from this all and above it, is what is the main 
evidence as to Christianity, as soon as ever a man be- 
gins really to hear the gospel ; because " the Spirit it- 
self beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the 
children of God," and because further " it is the Spirit 
that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 435 

For a moment, on that Sabbath day in Nazareth, 
while prejudice was asleep, and while he was being 
listened to in the synagogue, with all eyes fastened 
upon him, Jesus was probably for everybody a man of 
prophecy, and for some, perhaps, even the Messiah. 
But with being offended in him, his hearers had him 
change in their sight, to what apparently was worthy 
not only of excommunication, but even of death, ac- 
cording to the law of the synagogue. 

Said Nicodemus to Jesus, "Kabbi, we know that 
thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can 
do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with 
him." But notwithstanding these miracles, soon after- 
wards this happened. Said Jesus, " He that is of God 
heareth God's words : ye therefore hear them not, be- 
cause ye are not of God. Then answered the Jews, 
and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a 
Samaritan, and hast a devil ? " On the same facts 
such different judgments, because of such different 
judges ! 

And in a similar manner, and to a great extent, 
Christ Jesus was even to his believers, what they were 
ready or qualified for calling him. And thence per- 
haps he may have been apprehended variously by 
persons of different schools, rabbinically, and other- 
wise, and according also as they may have had right of 
entrance into the temple, as converts, or as Hebrews 
of the Jlebrews, or as priests. And indeed before the 
birth of Jesus, some of the various descriptions as to 
his office, were certainly phrases which were in use 
among the Jews, and were not improbably employed 
as synonymes, though of diverse origins scholastically. 



436 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

And so in the first age of the Church, Jesus " was a 
prophet mighty in deed and word before all the 
jfeople " ; and also he was the angel of the covenant : 
he was the Son of man and the Son of God : he was 
the light of the world, and he was the Word made 
flesh : and he was the Saviour of the world, and also 
its Judge. He was " the Lamb slain from the founda- 
tion of the world," and he was the " great high priest 
that is passed into the heavens," and also as Christ, 
he " through the eternal Spirit offered himself without 
spot to God." And further it is as to Christ Jesus, that 
it is written in the epistle to the Hebrews, " After the 
similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, 
who J.s made, not after the law of a carnal command- 
ment, but after the power of an endless life." A grand 
statement this ! But yet at the time when it was 
made it must certainly have been much more readily 
intelligible by " a Hebrew of the Hebrews," or by one 
brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, than by " devout 
Greeks." 

The sun is a thousand things for operation, as it 
rises, and so also was the sun of righteousness. Said 
Jesus as to John, " A prophet ! yea, I say unto you, 
and much more than a prophet. This is he of whom 
it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy 
face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." And 
that, by which Jesus Christ was the fulfilment of the 
various conceptions, which his contemporaries had of 
him, was that by which he could say of himself, " God 
giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." 

The Spirit of God is equivalent to all miracles in 
one, just as it is the essential spirit of all the de- 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 437 

velopments or creations which have been since the 
time, when what was " without form and void " began 
to grow into the forms and powers of that nature, 
which surrounds and supports us. It is " the spirit of 
life," from insect to man, and more divinely still it is 
" the spirit of life in Christ Jesus," through a sense of 
which any man may become " a new creature." It is 
the spirit of the universe waiting on man, as far as 
what is universal and eternal can possibly express it- 
self through what is merely temporary and local, or as 
far as human nature is possibly susceptible of it. 

But here it may be said, " What then ? and how is 
it ? Human nature, at its best — dust of the earth, 
however divine the soul may be that wears it — hu- 
man nature, how is it approachable by that Spirit ? 
For indeed credibility is something and indeed it is a 
great matter." And so it is : and every seed is a pre- 
sumption of there being somewhere a soil fitted for it ; 
and " every word of God " implies that properly some- 
where there are " ears to hear." And whatever gift in 
any age has come " down from above," must certainly 
have reached man, through some channel of which his 
own nature was the receptiveness. A kind word can 
soothe a man mentally : and why then should not a 
man full of " the spirit of life," be able to attune fel- 
low-creatures, bodily, and heal them with a touch ? 
Some people have a wonderful sense as to character, 
and a singular instinct as to the spirit of their times, 
and the significance and connections of events : and is 
it not conceivable that such persons, if quickened from 
above, would readily grow prophetic ? Certain people 
have remarkable experiences as to dreaming ; and it 



438 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

would seem that by nature they may be like those 
persons who were susceptible of visions in Pentecostal 
times. This is certain and very striking, psychologi- 
cally. At a time of great excitement, as to some high 
matter, social or religious, a thousand persons will sud- 
denly feel themselves affected towards one another like 
brethren, and as though pervaded and possessed by a 
common spirit. And by the transforming and elevat- 
ing effects of this spirit, every man in the crowd will 
feel as though he had become a new man. And so 
indeed he may be, for the moment, because of the 
affinity which he experiences as to all the souls about 
him ; and through which he thrills to whatever is 
strongest spiritually, in the living crowd of which he 
is a member. And what is this, but a manifestation 
of some of those susceptibilities, on which as a prep- 
aration, when the heavens are willing, the Spirit is 
poured out ? The body of man may be clay, but it is 
alive with spiritual possibilities, because of the in- 
dwelling soul. 

But Jesus was not accessible to the Spirit, simply as 
the prophets were. He was never convulsed, nor after 
his return from the desert, with his nature explored by 
his resistance of Satan, was he ever entranced. Nor 
for mood was he dependent on external assistance of 
any kind, as sometimes the prophets were. But 
through him, as a serene atmosphere, the Father that 
dwelt within him, did the works which were won- 
dered at, and spoke the words. 

Jesus Christ was, on this earth, the Spirit of the 
Highest, in action among men, as condescendingly as 
when with that Spirit chaos was first agitated, and those 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 439 

ways were started through which by development and 
concurrence, and by "word upon word" injected into 
nature, and with, at last, the breath of God for inspira- 
tion, there was produced a living soul in the image 
itself of God. 

And the Father, who was in Jesus, was the Spirit. 
But also that presence was the Spirit, as it never was 
or could have been in any other person on this earth, 
because there never was another, who could have been 
called Son of God, as he Avas. And under the high 
heavens, it was because of the sonship of Jesus, that 
the Spirit in him was the Divine fatherhood. 

When Jesus visited his own country, it is written 
because of unbelief about him, though he healed " a 
few sick folk," yet that "he could there do no mighty 
work." And therefore the Father in him, was not the 
almightiness of the universe bearing down upon men 
for its own way as mere power, but was a spirit more 
tender than that even of the prophecy by Isaiah, 
wherein it is written, " Come now, and let us reason 
together, saith the Lord." 

Jesus slept, and no doubt it was that he might wake 
the better. And sometimes his soul was joyous, and 
sometimes sorrowful. And therefore the eternal Spirit 
was expressive through him humanly. And it is not 
therefore necessary to suppose that every word of his 
in the cottages of Nazareth, or in Decapolis, or on the 
Lake of Galilee, or in Jerusalem, were his words as 
the Messiah ; for, between his baptism by the Spirit 
and his crucifixion, he must necessarily have uttered a 
thousand times more words than what his Messiahship 
could have been concerned with, and especially as the 



440 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

Son of man "came eating and drinking," and as 
though in the fair fulness of human nature. 

The cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ? " argued probably in Jewish 
ears, not despair, but simply wonder, humanly, that he 
was not more distinctly conscious of the Spirit. And 
not improbably, by the state in which he was upon the 
cross, that cry was uttered from something like that 
same level in his nature, as that from which at the 
river Jordan, he said to John, as to his being baptized, 
" Suffer it to be so now : for thus it becometh us to 
fulfil all righteousness." 

Such a consideration as the foregoing is to be enter- 
tained by us human beings reverently and humbly, 
separated as we are from the first century of our era 
by so many days and nights, and so many varieties of 
thought and speculation. 

According to John Smith, an eminent theologian of 
the seventeenth century, it was in conformity with 
what had been the practice of the old prophets, when 
Jesus associated with him the apostles as eyewitnesses 
and hearers. And, no doubt, the gospels are records, 
like what were kept among the Jews, in all ages, of 
the utterances of persons, who were believed to have 
the Spirit. Of the ancient prophets, according to 
Jewish history, the utterances of some which were 
once in books are now lost. And of the life of Jesus, 
of course, there was much of what was wonderful, 
which was never recorded, — " many other things which 
Jesus did." But as to the Spirit, for those who read 
by the Spirit, ten pages are almost as good as a thou- 
sand. And if not " spiritually discerned," the world 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 441 

itself full of books as to Christ, would not mean more 
than what the pages of the Four Gospels do. 

Said Jesus to the apostles, " Ye also shall bear wit- 
ness, because ye have been with me from the begin- 
ning." And as what they might rely upon for assist- 
ance, after his death, Jesus told them of " the Com- 
forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 
send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and 
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have 
said unto you." The prophets spoke from the Spirit, 
in the respective dialects of their various times and 
circumstances. And it was in some similar way that 
Matthew and John are such different biographers. In 
writing the life of Jesus, Matthew evinces the faculty of 
the publican, and the man of business and facts. And 
perhaps by no inspiration that was possible could some 
of the discourses of Jesus have ever been brought to his 
remembrance, as they were to the mind of John : because 
he could never, in hearing,, have apprehended them, even 
momentarily, as John did. And of all the apostles, 
the " disciple whom Jesus loved " was evidently the 
one in whose mind, with the quickening of the Holy 
Ghost, tjie words and image of Jesus would most 
readily revive. 

The Gospel of John has latterly been regarded by 
some critics as less certainly authentic than its three 
companions. It is manifestly more spiritual than they 
are ; and it was therefore, no doubt, less popular than 
they were in the earlier ages of the Church; and 
therefore, also, it was not quoted by writers, as the 
other Gospels were. That the Gospel of John differs 
in tone from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 
19* 



442 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

and also in amplitude of remembrance is actually evi- 
dence as to its authenticity, when it is remembered 
who John the evangelist was ; for because of what he 
had been to Christ he was probably beyond all the other 
apostles, receptive of the Spirit, which, as Jesus said to 
them, was to " bring all things to your remembrance, 
whatsoever I have said unto you." 

But there are persons who demur to this, and who say, 
" The Spirit ! That is a possibility. But how possibly 
could any man ever have been affected by it, and how 
did it operate upon him ? " But now how is the spirit 
immortal of a man connected with his mortal body : or 
how even does the will of a lion strike with his paw ? 
Indeed, the universe may resound ever so loudly with 
that stream, which is the spirit of life, and there will 
be some, at times, who will say, " I do not hear, be- 
cause I do not know how I ought to." And there is 
many a philosopher, at the present day, who does not 
consider that perhaps he may be partially insensate as 
to spirit, by wrong education ; and who is like some 
blind man under the Falls of Niagara, who should gay, 
" It might be by the sound. And intelligent men, for 
a long while, have fancied it so. But as I da not my- 
self see that it is so, I will not believe in the roar, as 
being an effect of these incredible Falls. And what 
for the multitude is the apparent sense, must be ex- 
plicable, philosophically, in some other way." But 
there are people who are in a still worse condition, 
mentally, than that blind man under the Falls. For 
they hold seriously that they ought not really to believe 
in anything at all, because they have never been ad- 
mitted behind their own eyes, where they could watch 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 443 

that mechanism of nature with its spiritual connections, 
through which external objects become thoughts in the 
mind. A man who is not to be contented in any other 
way, than by being not only himself, but also a wit- 
ness with his own eyes, apart from himself, is neces- 
sarily in some way beside himself. But enough as to 
this scepticism of the day ! For it is twenty-five hun- 
dred years out of date as a novelty ; as is evident by 
these words in the prophecies of Isaiah, " Woe unto 
him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou ? 
or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth ? " 

And like the absurdity denounced through the 
prophet Isaiah, is the folly which demurs to the Spirit 
of God, simply as not being concurrent with such laws 
of nature, as have been ascertained at the present day, 
and as not apparently being willing to be classed and 
manipulated, like the laws of chemistry. 

The Old Testament and the New, and the Apocry- 
pha also, in its degree, together with ecclesiastical 
memoirs of all ages, and along with them many a pas- 
sage also in pagan literature, — these are the history 
of man, as the subject of the Spirit of God, the Holy 
Ghost. And Christians differ from one another doc- 
trinally, not altogether because of more or less learn- 
ing, or because of more or less intellect, but because 
also as to the Spirit, some persons are more susceptible 
than others are, and some less. And this may be just 
simply as one man differs from another man, as to 
poetic sensitiveness. Nor in this statement is there 
anything of presumptuousness implied. For the ac- 
tion of the Spirit is but one among many influences, 
by which character is formed, as is evident from the 



444 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

fact that Judas was one of the twelve. The Scriptures 
are like a labyrinth, which may be forced and broken 
through by self-will ; but the clew to them, and that 
by which alone there is any intelligence as to the ways 
involved, is the Spirit, as a subject of belief. And in- 
deed the Spirit of God may well be credited as what 
made the rod of Aaron to bud and blossom, and as be- 
ing also what, at its will, might make a child of God 
display himself like an archangel, and hold all sur- 
rounding nature like a servant. 

The Spirit is everything as to power and adaptation 
and knowledge. By it coral insects build their cells, 
and through it new worlds are being evolved. And 
the " Spirit of life in Christ Jesus " is that same Spirit 
which seraphs glory in, and which also so clothes " the 
grass of the field." And so now what is there in the 
Gospels, for which the Spirit cannot be credited, as it 
was embodied in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and 
spake in his words, and acted in his deeds ? " 0, 
but," it is said, " no evidence as to the Spirit can be 
strong enough to upset belief as to the invariableness 
of nature." And this is said in easy forgetfulness of 
the fact, that there must have been ten or twenty 
different systems of nature known to men, as they 
have fancied. But such indeed is the unspiritual state 
of the Christian Church in some places, that Doctors 
of Divinity might be taught things of primary impor- 
tance by the paganism of Greece and even of Mada- 
gascar. 

As to the miracles of Jesus, the age in which they 
occurred is an important witness for their credibility, 
though it is seldom remembered. Jesus appeared in 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 445 

the world, announced and also welcomed by prophetic 
voices ; and his appearance was " when the fulness of 
the time was come." His era was "the day of the 
Lord." And while it was passing, spiritual agencies 
were unusually active in Palestine, at least ; and even 
the common air seemed to be a vague inspiration, as it 
was breathed. 

The age of Jesus Christ was what Micah had prophe- 
sied for his people, and those in authority over them ; 
" The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation com- 
eth ; now shall be their perplexity." It was the time 
which had been foretold by Malachi, four hundred years 
before, and which the people of Israel thought they 
would know by the token, which he gave. " Behold, 
I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming 
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." How 
that token as to Elijah was given has already been 
stated. But of the manner in which it was regard- 
ed by the Jewish mind, this is evidence that the dis- 
ciples said to Jesus, " Some say that thou art John 
the Baptist ; some, Elias ; and others Jeremiah, or one 
of the prophets." And this incident is also of the 
same nature, that during the crucifixion, when Jesus 
uttered a cry which was not properly heard by some per- 
sons, they said, " This man calleth for Elias." And all 
the while it had been as Jesus had said himself, as to 
John the Baptist, and after his execution, " Elias is come 
already, and they knew him not, but have done unto 
him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the 
Son of man suffer of them." O, words so simple and 
so wonderful, and out through which spoke the Spirit 
of the Most High, and as to which, by comparison, the 



446 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel themselves are but 
those of minor prophets ! 

Elias not recognized at his spiritual coming, — Jesus 
on his way to be crucified, — and Jerusalem with that 
fate becoming certain for it which Jesus Christ had pre- 
dicted, — and all the while the Scribes and Pharisees tri- 
umphant, — this all was because of the Spirit of God ; 
which, when it is active, attracts some and repudiates 
others, inspires a Messiah and his witnesses, and also 
makes still more distinct the temper and ways of them 
that would kill the prophets, and stone them that are 
divinely sent. 

That special spirit-power, under which the Jews had 
been living ever since the call of Abraham, was drawing 
in the first century of our era all the tendencies among 
them, open and latent, towards one point. And that 
point was Jesus of Nazareth, as connected with the 
Spirit. The question was asked, in one way and an- 
other, of Jesus, " Art thou he that should come ? " 
And answer was made not only by Jesus personally, 
but also by the Spirit to which he appealed, and even 
also by "the signs of the times." Said Simeon, pro- 
phetically, at the presentation of Jesus in the tem- 
ple, " Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising 
again of many in Israel ; and for a sign, which shall 
be spoken against." And Jesus as the Christ, was the 
trial of his people ; and his day was that of their vis- 
itation. Faithfulness to the Spirit, in the past, would 
have recognized him at once as the Christ. But the 
penal blindness of the people was such, that at the 
sight of Jerusalem, Jesus could but weep and say, " P 
thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 447 

the things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they 
are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon 
thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, 
and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every 
side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy 
children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee 
one stone upon another ; because thou knewest not the 
time of thy visitation." 

It was a " day of the Lord," and an age of prophecy. 
During the ministry of Christ, Vespasian was but an 
obscure youth in Italy ; but also he was fitting himself 
unconsciously, as an instrument for the hand of the 
Lord, — he under whom, as the emperor of Eome, Jeru- 
salem was to be captured, and the temple destroyed. 
The eagles of the legions were scattered over the vast 
empire, but in Jerusalem, there was a spirit working 
like destiny, which inevitably would draw the armies 
of Eome round the city, like eagles about a carcass. 

Peter, James, and John in vision saw Moses and 
Elias talking with Jesus, as they believed. And as a 
simple matter of history, it is certain that at that time 
all the ancient warnings in the law, as to disobedi- 
ence in regard to the Spirit, were immediately about 
to be made good, by the dispersion of the Israelites 
among all nations ; and in a manner, as to the thorough- 
ness of which, the last eighteen hundred years are sol- 
emn witnesses. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! there was 
coming on thee, as Christ said to thee at the time, and 
as to thy people, " all the righteous blood shed upon 
the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the 
blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew be- 
tween the temple and the altar." And the next words 



448 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

after these are of prophecy, and are very wonderful.' 
They are the Spirit in judgment on its subjects. " Verily 
I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this 
generation." And those things, as prophecies of trou- 
ble, are to be found recorded in the Gospel of Matthew ; 
and as the actualities of history, they are to be read 
of in the Wars of the Jews, by Josephus. 

In a full view of history, it is hardly possible to think 
otherwise, than that nations are subject to waves of 
rise and fall spiritually. But the age of Jesus was the 
outcome of nearly two thousand years of administra- 
tion by the Spirit among the Jews, and in a way more 
special than any other people ever experienced. 

Those years, which were the last of the Jewish peo- 
ple in Palestine, and which also were the first of our 
Christian era, — they were truly, as Malachi had fore- 
told, " the great and dreadful day of the Lord " ; and 
yet also, at the very beginning, they were what Zacha- 
rias could sing of, on the prompting of the Holy 
Ghost, saying, " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel ; for 
he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath 
raised up a horn of salvation for us, in the house of 
his servant David ; as he spake by the mouth of his 
holy prophets, which have been since the world began." 
That wonderful season ! As the like of it, there is 
nothing else to be conceived of, than the movement of 
the Spirit of God, for a new world, and the quickening 
of the elements, once, out of what was without form 
and void. 

It was a period in which " unclean spirits " were un- 
usually numerous ; and during which it felt almost as 
though "the rulers of the darkness of this world" 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 449 

•might even loom upon the sight. It was an era in 
which often u the word of God " gleamed like " the 
sword of the Spirit." It was a time singularly charged 
with spirit. And when the marvellousness itself of 
that age is considered, miracles, as " signs of the times," 
would seem to have been almost as natural as fireflies 
are to the umbrageousness of a tropical climate. 

It is not in the scope of this essay, to argue the 
credibility of the miracles recorded in the Gospels, 
one by one, nor yet to join in the controversy as to 
the reasonableness of the miracle concerned with the 
withering of the fig-tree. Everything, which is to be 
learned about these miracles, circumstantially and his- 
torically, is easily accessible. The miracles of Christ, 
however, were not universally believed, in his own day ; 
nor were his miraculous words always understood. 
Said Jesus even as to great multitudes, " In them 
is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By 
hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand ; and 
seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive." The mira- 
cles of Jesus, not believed in his own time, as certainly 
they were not by the Sanhedrim ! How, then, can it 
be expected that they should be credible to-day ? 
Simply, because it is possible, that even to-day, there 
may be a better judgment as to those miracles, than 
even what the members of the Great Council could 
have formed. For, at this day, we are living long 
after the events, and can see and estimate, and allow 
for the prejudices, by which the Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees were blinded. It may be said, that to-day, men 
may be prejudiced as to retrospect. And of course, 
that is true. But yet candor, at this present time is 

CO 



450 JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 

not liable to a tenth part of the offuscation, to which a' 
member of the Sanhedrim was subject by the mere act 
of entering the chamber of the Council. 

In favor of the Messiahship of Jesus, that Council 
itself is evidence now, by the manner in which it 
came to an end. And at the siege of Jerusalem by 
Titus, every soldier round the city, in his place, was 
an unconscious witness for Jesus as a prophet. And 
at the destruction of the temple, because of what 
Christ had said, every stone, as it was thrown down, 
cried out as to " the name of the Lord." 

The miracles of Jesus were " signs of the times." 
And the times, as they seemed to be signified, were 
abundantly fulfilled. 

That " day of the Lord," that great era of the 
Spirit, how can it possibly be understood, without even 
a belief in the Spirit ? And it cannot be but that the 
commentary of many a famous divine, upon its oc- 
currences, trying to reconcile them to one another and 
to reason as he thinks, must be what the angels con- 
cerned therewith would utterly disown. 

And especially, it is only as a man stands within the 
light of the Spirit, or as he apprehends what may be 
called the science of the Spirit, that the evidence as 
to the resurrection of Jesus becomes fairly intelligible. 
Why did one man see, and another man not ; and why 
on one or two occasions, with seeing, was there not 
instant recognition ? Simply because it was seeing by 
the Spirit, and with eyes which were opened by it, in 
some persons more than in others. It was seeing 
Jesus by eyes adapted to a body which had become of 
that nature, that it could appear in a room, " when the 



JESUS AND THE SPIRIT. 451 

doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for 
fear of the Jews." 

The Scriptures are not fully and fairly intelligible, 
when read according to the Analysis of the Human 
Mind by James Mill, or any other such philosophy. 
For they presuppose a pneumatology, by which man 
is soul as well as body ; and by which while he is 
chained to the earth, he is yet also a nursling of the 
skies. 



JESUS AND THE KESUKBECTIOK 

AS the Mosaic dispensation was drawing towards its 
close, more and more express became the minis- 
tration of the Spirit through it. Moses had been a law- 
giver, and David and Isaiah had been prophets ; and 
Gideon had been like the sword of the Lord, and Solo- 
mon like a miracle of wisdom. But patriarchs and 
prophets, and all the angels who had ever been con- 
cerned with them, religiously, were but like servants, 
when compared with him to whom " God giveth not 
the Spirit by measure." For " when he bringeth in the 
first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the 
angels of God worship him." 

To the foregoing does any one say, " Ancient Hebrew 
idiom ! " disdainfully ? And so perhaps it is. But 
what then ? Was there ever a philosophy which did 
not have its peculiar terms and phraseology ? Or is 
science, in the least degree discredited, because its 
nomenclature is foreign to the mind of a Kaffir ? And 
is craniology, or is the science of even dead bones, so 
simple, as that a person can read a treatise on oste- 
ology with the same intelligence and words which 
suffice him perfectly as a merchant ? And history and 
science, in combination, as to the connection of man 
with God by the Spirit, ever since there was first a 
manifestation of the divine image on the earth, — is it 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 453 

anything strange as to this, that it may perhaps need 
interpretation, in some degree, even as geology does, or 
astronomy ? How many men there are who grow 
spiritually blind through self-sufficiency ! and with 
their flippant speeches, how many more persons there 
are who are perverted from the simplicity of truth ! 

No past age can ever be known as it was, except by 
a lamp like what the light of that time was. And 
mere self-assertion on a subject like that of " the ful- 
ness of the time" would be of the nature of blas- 
phemy, except as desecration about a temple was never 
possible from mere chirping sparrows, because of their 
being ignorant. 

Does a man deny the resurrection of Jesus, as hav- 
ing any pertinency for him, because of its involving 
considerations for which he has not the requisite learn- 
ing, or for which he thinks that he has not time ? or 
because it claims to be something so very unlike to the 
tenor of his daily newspaper. Or does he demur to the 
New Testament as being of any special concern for 
him, because of its antiquity ? Then let him remem- 
ber, that from this present hour to the first day of the 
first year of our Lord is a shorter space of time, than 
it was from the birth of Jesus Christ to the promise 
which was made to Abraham at his call, " In thee 
shall all families of the earth be blessed/' 

By every drop of blood in his veins ; by every modi- 
fication of every thought which he has ; and by every 
stripe of suffering, ever endured in the world, and 
through which, in any manner, bodily or spiritually, 
he is healed, man is a child of the past, throughout 
all its generations. Men are historically born, and are 



454 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

bound historically. And the more of a man that any 
individual may be, so much the more solemnly is he 
responsible as to the ages behind him, for what they 
may have to testify. Disown the past simply as being 
ancient ! a man might as well disown God as* not being 
his own little self ! 

Length of time, merely, does not separate human 
beings. After three thousand years, the Book of Euth^ 
is like a tale of yesterday. And yet at this very hour 
hate cannot possibly understand love, and is separated 
from it by what,, as to space, may be called infinity. 
As to historical events, time is almost nothing in 
comparison with distance by philosophy, or spiritual 
state. 

The state of mind being changed in which docu- 
ments are read, it is as though the documents them- 
selves had been written afresh ; and then what had 
seemed to be discrepancies according to a materialistic 
understanding, when read according to a spiritual 
philosophy may become parts which even corroborate 
one another. 

How strangely and often figures of speech have be- 
come disfigurements of facts ! And how often, also, 
an earnest man has been reduced to mere rationalism 
in theology, because of the manner in which "the 
things of the Spirit " have been argued, as though they 
were material monuments, and properly the subjects 
of arithmetic, geometry, and mere logic ! 

The age of Jesus Christ, — that day of the Lord was 
not exactly like yesterday, though yet to-day there 
are means by which, critically and historically, it is 
to be known of as it was. The resurrection of Jesus 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 455 

is not a mere incident in history, because it is in- 
finitely connected. "For as in Adam all die, even 
so in Christ shall all be made alive." That " new 
sepulchre wherein was never man yet laid " was about 
to be the birthplace, as to manifestation, of " the Lord 
from heaven." And that same place, when left vacant 
by the resurrection of Jesus, was about to become the 
cenotaph of mere Judaism. 

When Jesus was transfigured on the mount, it was 
because of the Spirit ; and through the Spirit it was 
that the apostles saw him, and Moses and Elias with 
him. And it was because of the Spirit, that there was 
" heaven open and the angels of God ascending and 
descending upon the Son of man." 

A voice from heaven had just borne him witness ; 
when Jesus said to his hearers, " And I, if I be lifted 
up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This 
he said, signifying what death he should die." 
wonderful age and day of the Lord ! A day which in 
vision Abraham had desired to see, and also had seen ! 
And yet, too, it was a day as to which, fourteen hun- 
dred years later than Abraham, it was doubtful, pro- 
phetically, how people would be able to endure it on 
its coming ! And what a time, indeed, that time was ! 
And indeed otherwise than wonderful how could that 
age have been, wherein he was living through whose 
death the human race was to be born again ! 

" Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done 
by him : and he was perplexed, because that it was 
said of some, that John was risen from the dead ; and 
of some, that Elias had appeared ; and of others, that 
one of the old prophets was risen again. And Herod 



456 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

said, John have I beheaded ; but who is this, of v/hoin 
I hear such things ? " Herod was a Sadducee, prob- 
ably, and yet with his ears a little open for hearing. 

Astonishing times they were ! as, indeed, well they 
might have been, while destiny as to Jerusalem was 
making itself sure ; and while the prophets seemed to 
be calling out aloud and afresh their old predictions, 
and while those events were occurring, of which the 
four gospels were to be the long-enduring records. 
The promise to Abraham was about being fulfilled; 
and what anciently was but a germ of destiny, was 
about to become full-orbed, and to rise upon the na- 
tions, spiritually, as the sun of righteousness with 
healing in its wings. A wonderful age it was ; for it 
was the greatest age, as to crisis in history, which has 
.ever been. It was an age as to the full manifestation 
of which imperial Eome was but a servant for making 
ready highways for its great news ; or, at best, but an 
unquestionable, though unconscious, witness as to the 
keeping of the sepulchre, in and from out of which 
Jesus rose again. Plato and iEschylus, and also Aris- 
totle, — what has their worth been, in comparison with 
the language which they used, and through which 
Greece was but like an intelligent secretary, for help- 
ing apostles and others to publish their histories, 
epistles, and visions, in the best manner possible, 
for the best intellects of the age ! 

It was under heaven, and on the earth, " the fulness 
of the time," more completely than Paul himself, per- 
haps, ever thought, and in ways of which it is con- 
ceivable, that hereafter science will have much to say 
as to the conditions which concurred, telluric, mag- 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 457 

netic, and celestial, and also as to something psycho- 
logically, by which human nature may itself have been 
ripened for fresh conditions of growth. Let the wisdom 
of Egypt have been all which can possibly be claimed 
for it ; and let the wise men of the East have been in- 
formed ever so mysteriously ; yet, as a fact, historically, 
^ was not there once familiarly named in the cottages 
of Galilee, and current in the streets of Jerusalem, a 
name which has proved itself, up to this time, to have 
been above every other name ? And therefore that 
age may well be credited for having been what Paul 
claimed for it as " the dispensation of the fulness of 
time,'' and thereby also, under Heaven, as the con- 
centration of all those forces, by which human beings 
live and move and are lifted up. 

When Jesus cried out, " Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! 
thou that killest the prophets ! " he w r as at a point, 
both as to time and place, where the general effect of 
Jewish history was becoming manifest, as to the law 
which was given by Moses ; and as to the long rebel- 
liousness, which was punished by the captivity in 
Babylon; as to what Samuel and Saul had been in 
regard to one another; and as to what David had 
sung, and what so very differently he had sometimes 
done ; also as to Solomon so wise and so foolish ; and 
as to the time in which Ahab and Elijah knew of one 
another ; and as to the ages respectively of the proph- 
ets from Isaiah to Malachi. 

The world was at the beginning of a new era, which 
was to date from Jesus of Nazareth, as he was popu- 
larly called, but yet " the world knew him not." For 
indeed, at that time, it was a crisis of that nature, and 
20 



458 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

so great, as that what is light to one is darkness to a 
thousand. And, indeed, otherwise than from that rea- 
son how could there have been " killed the Prince of 
life " ? And, indeed, that Prince himself said as to the 
people of his time, " If therefore the light that is in 
thee be darkness, how great is that darkness ! " 

When heaven draws nigh to earth, it is with a light, 
which is blinding darkness for some persons, while yet 
for others it is like what angels might emerge from. 
Heaven draws nigh to earth for quickening. And 
with quickening they are the latent faculties of men 
which specially are made remarkable. And it is with 
remembering that the spiritual atmosphere at the be- 
ginning of our era would seem to have been inten- 
sified, that many of its incidents become intelligible, 
such as the revival of prophecy, and the incursion of 
unclean spirits. A day of the Lord is a time in which 
men spiritually are under pressure, for the better if 
they are good, and for the worse if they are bad. And 
such a time was that wherein were included the life, 
crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension of our 
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

And even as it was as to Jesus Christ, that on 
being " put to death in the flesh " he was " quickened 
by the Spirit," so also there were those as witnesses 
who were raised as to their latent spiritual faculties, 
and which were those by which they saw and heard 
him ; and so, also, there were others more numerous 
still than they, who felt, spiritually, as to Jesus and 
death that "it was not possible that he should be 
holden of it." 

The resurrection of Jesus was the manifestation of a 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 459 

crisis as to mankind, under heaven ; and it is not to be 
understood, at all, apart from time and place and a be- 
lief in the Spirit. 

In regard to the resurrection of Jesus, many of the 
objections as to belief in it originate in such a state 
of mind as what would say this, " Anatomists and 
chemists standing round, let a dead body, on a table, 
get up and talk, and then perhaps men will believe.'' 
And the brothers of the people who talk thus would 
say, " Seeing is believing ; and as we did not see, we 
do not believe." But what is Supreme in the Universe 
would seem to be careless of human pettiness, even 
at its grandest ; and sometimes even it would seem to 
have " chosen the foolish things of the world to con- 
found the wise." 

The resurrection of Jesus was the greatest fact of a 
great age, and it was the culmination of the greatest 
earthly crisis under heaven, and as to the significance 
of which, not Jerusalem only, but Egypt and Assyria, 
and Greece and Eome, and all time, also, by the way 
of prophecy, were concurrent. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, it is written, as to Pilate, 
while Jesus was on his trial before him, that " when he 
was set down on the judgment-seat, his wife sent unto 
him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just 
man : for I have suffered many things this day in a 
dream because of him." A sign of the times this was, 
and as to what the atmosphere was, spiritually. Pi- 
late's wife had this experience. And so strange it is, 
that it has been so little noticed. The prediction of 
his Lord as to Peter, that he would deny him thrice in 
one short night, is accounted as having been wonder- 



460 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

ful because of the manner of its fulfilment ; and surely 
so it was. But this dream of Pilate's wife is evidence 
as to what the state was of what may be called the 
atmosphere, spiritually, in Jerusalem, at that time. 
And of like proof is the opinion of Caiaphas as to the 
expediency of killing Jesus, which " spake he not of 
himself ; but, being high priest that year, he prophesied 
that Jesus should die for that nation." 

As to the picture of the crucifixion which the gos- 
pels give, how many wonderful lines there are, which 
could never have been drawn except from life ! And 
also they are lines which are self-sufficient, as to evi- 
dence, for a critical understanding ! For a man with 
" ears to hear " that incident is as true as truth itself, 
as to what the thieves said to one another as they hung 
on their separate crosses, and as to what Jesus replied 
to one of them. Such words, at such a time, and from 
such lips ! " And Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say 
unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." 
This paradise was certainly not heaven, because even 
after his resurrection Jesus said to Mary, " Touch me 
not ; for I am not yet ascended to my Father." The 
state into which Jesus passed after his death as a 
mortal was that apparently wherein, on his entrance, 
he " preached unto the spirits in prison." That place 
or state, therefore, of paradise was probably one of hope- 
fulness. And on this understanding, these words of 
Jesus to the penitent thief are intelligible and also in- 
finitely tender. 

As to the time during which Jesus was dying on 
the cross, it is written, " Now from the sixth hour there 
was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour." 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 461 

And by another evangelist, it is said that " the sun was 
darkened." According to the use of language, it is 
not necessary to suppose that there was an eclipse of 
the sun, either natural or supernatural. Nor yet fairly 
ought the historian to be considered as being held by 
his words to mean anything more than a preter- 
natural darkness in perhaps the region round Jerusa- 
lem. As to whether that darkness was noticed in 
Eome, or experienced by Caractacus in Britain, is 
simply a superfluous question. 

It has been sometimes supposed that this darkness 
was an effect in nature occasioned by her conscious 
sympathy with the sight of the crucifixion. But that, 
of course, is mere sentimentalism. There are some 
illustrations which might be adduced on this subject, 
which would be abundantly credible to some persons, 
but which yet cannot be pleaded here without an ar- 
gument, which would be a book in itself. 

That darkness was probably not a special but an 
accompanying miracle. It was simply an incident in 
connection with the death of Jesus ; and what w^as 
miraculous in it was because of that miracle of or- 
ganization which Jesus Christ himself was. And prob- 
ably that strange darkness round Golgotha was because 
of the greatness of that soul, which mortally was con- 
nected with nature, and which by that connection was 
in agony. With every breath which any man draws, 
the air about him is changed and impoverished. Nor 
is man connected with the air, merely as concerns oxy- 
gen and nitrogen, but by electricity and magnetism, 
and also, probably, by other ways which are unknown. 
And so it is readily conceivable, that in some manner 



462 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

the forces of nature may have been unbalanced and 
darkened, whilst the soul of Jesus Christ was being 
loosened from connection with them. And as to this 
supposition, there are some things analogous, histor- 
ically and psychologically, of which some great minds 
have been well persuaded. 

The thought of there being any possible connection 
between a tempest and an earthquake was once ac- 
counted superstitious, but at present it is scientific. 
That by pestilence, there could be an obscuration of 
the atmosphere, was once supposed to be merely a fancy, 
but now it is an ascertained fact. And like what im- 
mediately precedes, let also what follows be mentioned 
for what it may be worth. Several times in history, 
as to men who had been like the right arm of direc- 
tion for their times, it is recorded that on dying, the 
atmosphere about them seemed to signify itself by 
darkness or by tempest. And now let it be remem- 
bered that by a spiritual philosophy, which is not 
likely 4o become extinct, Christ Jesus was the " one 
mediator between God and men." And then the 
darkening, which there was round about, at the time 
of his crucifixion, will not seem so strange as neces- 
sarily to be incredible ; nor yet so anomalous but that 
even science may be expected some time to demonstrate 
the manner of it. 

"Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud 
voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold the veil of 
the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bot- 
tom." In the temple there were two veils ; but the 
one which was specially " the veil " must have been 
the second veil, behind which was "the tabernacle 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 463 

which is called the Holiest of all ; which had the 
golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid 
round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot 
that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the 
tables of the covenant ; and over it the cherubims of 
glory shadowing the mercy-seat." These things were 
memorials of the past, as to the Spirit. And they 
were also signs of what the Jewish people had been 
to God, as "a peculiar people." And the tearing of 
the veil before them was emblematic that thenceforth 
" the things of the Spirit " were open to all persons, 
who should anywhere ever be quickened by the Spirit. 
And it was the work, perhaps, of " the angel of the 
covenant." And it was done, probably, as a prepara- 
tion of the minds of men against the day of Pentecost, 
and what ensued upon it. 

By the same evangelist who has just been quoted, 
it is said, in continuation, that " the earth did quake 
and the rocks rent." This probably happened in the 
same way as at the resurrection. " And the graves 
were opened ; and many bodies of the saints which 
slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resur- 
rection, and went into the holy city, and appeared 
unto many." Not graves, but monumental tombs, 
are what the evangelist himself mentions. And the 
bodies which appeared unto many certainly were not 
resuscitated flesh and bones. That could never have 
been, concurrently, at least, with the doctrine of St. 
Paul. " But some man will say, How are the dead 
raised up ? and with what body do they come ? Thou 
fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except 
it die." And then, in continuation of his argument, 



464 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

the apostle explains that "there is a natural body, 
and there is a spiritual body." The world of nature 
on that morning, at Jerusalem, was powerfully inter- 
penetrated by spirit, and so was very pliant, perhaps, 
to angelic agency. And it may be that angels opened 
the tombs of some well-known saints, in celebration of 
Christ's victory over death ; and it may be, also, that 
the saints themselves were present at the time, because 
of there having been a door opened from Hades, by 
which for Christ to return into his natural body, in 
this world of nature, on his way to " the right hand of 
the Majesty on high." And these bodies of the saints, 
or these saints as spiritual bodies, were visible to 
many, but not to everybody. They were seen by 
those persons whose spiritual " eyes were opened," 
through that power of the Spirit which was abroad, 
and by which the time was characterized. 

When the chief priests and Pharisees applied to 
Pilate, as the Eoman governor, to have a guard set 
over the sepulchre, they said it was because K Sir, we 
remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet 
alive, After three days I will rise again." That proph- 
ecy was from the Spirit, just as afterwards the resur- 
rection itself was. Peter argued that the resurrection 
of Jesus had been foretold by David in a psalm, which 
is called prophetic ; and Peter, probably, had a much 
better knowledge of the Spirit, and its manner of utter- 
ing itself, than is possible at this dark, materialistic 
day. And, no doubt, that Spirit which was the res- 
urrection of Jesus did flash with forethought of it, in 
the minds of some of the prophets. Rectified as to 
translation, these are the words which were cited by 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 465 

Peter from David : " For thou wilt not leave my soul in 
Hades : neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to 
see corruption." The soul of Jesus was not to be left 
in the common world of spirits, the intermediate world, 
or waiting-place of spirits, though it was indeed to 
enter it, as certainly it did, when Jesus proceeded to 
preach to " the spirits in prison." Nor was the body 
of Jesus to see corruption. And it would seem like 
some security for the exact fulfilment of the prophecy, 
that for those hours during which the body was in 
the tomb it was partially embalmed. "Then took 
they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes 
with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. 
Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a 
garden ; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein 
was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus." 

Moses and Elias had talked with Jesus, as to " his 
decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem " ; 
and not improbably they may have been present at the 
entombment of his mangled body, though invisibly ; 
and it may be, too, that in Hades, somewhere, they 
may have heard Christ's announcement of himself to 
spirits in prison. 

It was dark in the tomb, with its door shut and 
sealed ; but suddenly and soon there was going to be 
" light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun," 
like the splendor, with which Paul, at his conversion, 
saw the risen Jesus invested. 

At the resurrection of Jesus, " behold, there was a 

great earthquake ; for the angel of the Lord descended 

from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from 

the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like 

20* DP 



466 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

lightning, and his raiment white as snow : and for fear 
of hini, the keepers did shake, and became as dead 
men." It is not necessary to suppose that that earth- 
quake was what might have been felt on the heights 
of Capernaum ; for, no doubt, it was of the same local 
character, and from the same spiritual cause as when 
a little later " suddenly there came a sound from heav- 
en as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the 
house where they were sitting." It was an earthquake 
from spiritual power present, like what there was when 
" at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises 
unto God ; and the prisoners heard them. And sud- 
denly there was a great earthquake, so that the foun- 
dations of the prison were shaken ; and immediately 
all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were 
loosed." Earth hangs on heaven by chains which grow 
so fine that they are what seraphs can handle, as they 
stand about the throne of God. And when angels ap- 
proach material objects, it is with a touch more subtle 
and mighty than that of electricity. An angel with a 
countenance like lightning might well shake the earth 
by the sole of his foot. And because of such an one, 
at the door of the sepulchre, " the keepers did shake 
and became as dead men." And they were affected 
just as the companions of Paul were, at the time of 
his conversion ; and they again were affected as those 
men were who were with Daniel when there was 
about him that power which disclosed itself in a vis- 
ion, and on whom "a great quaking fell." 

Behind the letter of the Scriptures, on these points, 
lies a broad field of what once was knowledge, but 
which now is a fog of materialism, for almost every 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 467 

reader. Peter the Apostle, had looked into the empty 
sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection, and af- 
terwards had seen Jesus again and again, and talked 
with him ; and what he WTote as to Jesus, about 
twenty-five years later than his last sight of his Mas- 
ter, is that he was " put to death in the flesh, but 
quickened by the Spirit." 

But was that crucified body quickened ? No ; not 
altogether perhaps. Though there may probably have 
been a quickening, by which the mortal remains of 
Jesus may have been affected, on his recall from 
Hades. But was the heart that had been pierced 
healed again miraculously ? Probably it was not. 

The body of Jesus, as it lay in the tomb, was not 
the body of an ordinary man. Says St. Paul, " All 
flesh is not the same flesh," and that temple of the 
Holy Ghost which was the body of Jesus had proba- 
bly been sublimed in such a manner as that on his 
return from the world of spirits into this realm of na- 
ture, his body, on its assumption, became but like that 
thin robe which justly availed for keeping him awhile 
within the sight of his disciples. 

In the Book of Ecclesiasticus, it is said of Elisha, 
that " after his death his body prophesied," or was an 
outlet for spiritual power. A few months after the 
burial of Elisha there was war with the Moabites, * and 
it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, be- 
hold, they spied a band of men ; and they cast the 
man into the sepulchre of Elisha : and when the man 
was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he re- 
vived and stood upon his feet." Perhaps the body of 
Elisha, at the time of his death, was half ready for 



468 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

w 
being translated, and it may be that after the body was 
dead there lingered in it something of that vitalized 
magnetism which, by its strength, may have been one 
of the conditions of that spiritual receptiveness, through 
which, at the will of the Lord, he was a prophet. 

It is certain that there is a chemistry as to the con- 
nection between the soul and the body ; and it is 
attested by a thousand wonderful facts, although so 
little is known, as yet, as to its laws. 

Early in the Book of Genesis it is to be read, " And 
Enoch walked with God : and he was not ; for God 
took him." According to the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
the translation of Enoch was connected with his faith. 
It is conceivable with his long life and walk with God, 
that the body of Enoch may have become so ethereal- 
ized, as that his soul, on its passage from earth to 
heaven, may simply have parted from what dropped, 
in a moment, into a handful of common dust. And in 
some manner like this, probably, did the soul of Elijah 
clear itself of nature. For,\certainly, it could not have 
been with an ordinary body that Elijah entered a 
chariot of fire, and went up to heaven in a whirl- 
wind. And, no doubt, by some such path as that by 
which he vanished, Elijah was present at the trans- 
figuration of Christ. But along with Elias, also, 
Moses " appeared in glory." And it is noticeable that, 
as to the mortal end of Moses, or what went with his 
body, there was a mystery. " So Moses the servant 
of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according 
to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a 
valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor ; 
but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 469 

On the morning of the resurrection, probably, the 
soul of Jesus entered his dead body, and then shook 
from itself the sublimated dust. And so Jesus re- 
tained about him only as much earthiness as would 
hold his wounds, and enable him to satisfy people as 
to his personal actuality and his identity. 

At the door of the sepulchre, while angels in white 
were inside of it, suddenly Jesus was recognized by 
Mary, as he stood near her. " Jesus saith unto her, 
Touch me not ; for I am not yet ascended to my 
Father." And yet only eight days later " saith he to 
Thomas, Beach hither thy finger, and behold my 
hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it 
into my side : and be not faithless, but believing." 
These two incidents are worthy of notice, as being 
likely, some time, to suggest something as to the chem- 
istry of the spiritual body. 

The body which Thomas touched was that of Jesus 
while he was standing withinside of our earthly sphere ; 
and perhaps it may have been capable of being hard- 
ened at will. But also it was the same body in which 
afterwards Jesus " ascended up far above all heavens." 
By his resurrection, Jesus was not merely an appari- 
tion, or a spirit ; for he was thereby clothed with 
another nature than what a phantom wears. Said 
Jesus to the disciples, when they were frightened at 
his appearance among them, on the first evening after 
his resurrection : " Behold my hands and my feet, that 
it is I myself : handle me and see ; for a spirit hath 
not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." And yet 
with that body he could appear suddenly in a room, 
the doors being shut. 



470 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

On the morning of the resurrection, Jesus was not 
to be touched, as not having yet ascended to his 
Father ; but within a few hours afterwards he was 
even to be handled. And thus, certainly, he had ex- 
perienced some change further than that in the sepul- 
chre, by the marvel of which he stood alive, and within 
the sight and hearing of Mary Magdalene. And some 
further change still than that would seem to have been 
experienced by him, when, after his last interview 
with his apostles, and his last words to them, on 
Olivet, " he was taken up and a cloud received him 
out of their sight." For, after this event, he was seen 
by Paul twice, at least ; but not under the same con- 
ditions as before. For to Paul he was visible only 
through the Spirit, and in vision. And so, also, it 
was that he was visible to Stephen. When Stephen 
was put on his trial, " all that sat in the council, look- 
ing steadfastly on him, saw his face, as it had been 
the face of an angel." And, after his argument as to 
Christ, when his judges gnashed on him with their 
teeth, " he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up 
steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, 
and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." 
wondrous fact, about which the more there is which 
is learned, the more certain and wonderful will it be- 
come ! 0, those triumphant words of Paul to Timo- 
thy, as to " the appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought 
life and immortality to light through the good news " ! 

What, then, was the resurrection ? It was the pas- 
sage of Jesus from the world of spirits into heaven, 
through the realm of nature, and especially by the 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 471 

way of liis mortal body. " death, where is thy 
sting ? O Hades, where is thy victory ? " 

But now there are persons who will say, " Why then 
did Jesus not walk into the judgment-hall, and speak 
to Caiaphas ; and why did he not show himself in the 
market-place ; and why did he not mount the steps 
of the altar, to the utter confusion of every enemy ? " 
But why then does God not confute his blasphemers 
with thunder and lightning, every day ? and why, un- 
der high heaven, are not the highest truths as to morals 
and philosophy borne in irresistibly upon all minds 
alike ? And perhaps also Jesus would not have been 
able, and could not even have wished, to show himself 
to Caiaphas. Also affairs which involve the higher laws 
of the Spirit are not to be summoned for examination 
into the market-place. It is a precept which has wide 
and deep reasons behind it, spiritually, " Give not that 
which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your 
pearls before swine." And the reasons even why Peter 
saw Jesus Christ, and those for which Caiaphas and 
Pilate did not see him, would be found, when spiritu- 
ally considered, to corroborate one another. It is a 
general truth, " Draw nigh to God and he will draw 
nigh to you." And perhaps something psychologically 
being allowed for, only those who recognized Jesus as 
the Christ, or seeing him in his humiliation, were 
capable of being quickened, so as to see him, on his 
way through the earth to his glory. 

As to the universe, Jesus, after his resurrection, was 
in a region intermediate between this world and the 
next, or rather he was in a state by which he was free 
of both worlds. He appeared among his friends sud- 



472 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

denly, by some unearthly way, and then as suddenly 
he was gone. As affecting his visibility, there were 
two conditions, of which one was what may be called 
the fine earthiness, which he still held about him like 
a veil ; and the other was the Spirit, and through the 
Spirit some persons were quickened as to their eyes 
and ears spiritually, so as that they not only saw and 
heard Jesus, but even also angels attendant on him. 

The body of Jesus after the resurrection was the 
same body as before in the eye of an angel, perhaps, 
although it had ceased to be recognized by the law of 
gravitation, and perhaps might have stood before Pilate, 
and never have been seen. Essentially and germinally, 
the body which was taken up into heaven was the 
same body which was crucified on the cross, and the 
same body which the child Jesus had when he " in- 
creased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God 
and man." In a grain of wheat, not as a possibility 
merely, but as an organized fact, there is latent " first 
the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the 
ear," not visibly to a human eye, but very curiously so, 
perhaps, to an angel by what may be called the spirit 
of science. From the cross to the sepulchre, there was 
carried the crucified body of Jesus ; and a seal was set 
on the door against it, and a Eoman guard. And that 
body as it was laid down in the grave-clothes was 
never seen again. 

Jesus as he was seen outside of the sepulchre, talk- 
ing with one and another and walking, and visible also 
to all the apostles together, and to five hundred per- 
sons at once, and to Paul also once and again, in vision, 
— Jesus crucified, dead, buried, and risen, is the original 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 473 

of that apostle's doctrine as to the resurrection, " It is 
sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." 

And why ? Why at all should it be thought a thing 
incredible that God should raise the dead, and do so 
at that time especially ? fulness of the time ! ex- 
tremity of human want, when the whole creation was 
groaning and travailing in pain together ! the ear- 
nestness of that expectation which everywhere was 
waiting in the truest souls, for the manifestation of the 
sons of God! And age after age, how many had 
prayed these words, in the faith of something great, 
" Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of 
him ? or the son of man, that thou makest account of 
him ? Man is like to vanity : his days are as a shadow 
that passeth away. Bow thy heavens, Lord, and 
come down : touch the mountains, and they shall 
smoke." 

And towards that new tomb which was hewn out 
of the rock, truly the heavens were bowed down, in 
what was "the fulness of the time." And at that 
sepulchre, when radiant angels emerged withinside of 
it, it was because the way had been opened for them, 
from above, by the Spirit. The strength by which 
" was rolled back the stone from the door," the earth- 
quake, and the quaking of the keepers simply were 
signs of there being present " power from on high." 

Humanly speaking, the Father Everlasting was 
about to raise his Son from the dead, and to show him 
openly. But as under high heaven, the prophecies of 
the Spirit as to Jesus were then about to be made 
good, by the Spirit itself. The wrath of a nation had 
hurried on to a point, whence the highest praise as to 



474 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

God was to begin. And the words of Peter are exact 
when he writes of Christ as having been "put to 
death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." 

But when Christ " ascended up on high/' where did 
he go ? For the firmament, scientifically, now is 
nowhere. Where then was it, that Christ Jesus went ? 
" He was received up into heaven," just as it is writ- 
ten. But heaven has nothing to do with any firma- 
ment, whether phenomenal or real. And it is to be 
looked for, only in such a direction as that by which 
Christ with ascending " took captivity captive." Jesus 
said to Mcodemus, " If I have told you earthly things, 
and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you 
of heavenly things ? And no man hath ascended up 
to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even 
the Son of man, which is in heaven." Now, what does 
this mean, but that Jesus, as to his spirit and spiritual 
connections, was in heaven, while yet with his bodily 
tongue he was talking with Mcodemus in Jerusalem ? 

And there is nobody open to the Spirit but can feel 
how this may be. Because with myself, it is certain 
that my highest mood, spiritually, differs from my 
badness far more than any change which could happen 
for me, by the widest locomotion, or even by the death 
of my body. But it is said, " 0, but heaven and earth 
are so different ! For, as to our earthly lives, there are 
fixed points, by which to think ; but as to heaven, who 
knows about it, any way, except by faith ? " Now, that 
faith which is not an increment, spiritually of knowl- 
edge, is as worthless as ignorance itself. And this is 
true even as to the resurrection of Jesus. Faith is 
spiritual believing. It is the persuasion of a man as 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 475 

to things beyond his reach intellectually, because of 
what he is himself, or of what he knows, or otherwise 
feels. And this statement agrees with faith, as being 
possible, even as a gift of the Spirit. For the Spirit 
reaches persons only as they are open to it. The 
wicked Ahab could never have become St. Paul. But 
Saul the persecutor was in a ripe state of knowl- 
edge, theologically, when he was converted in a mo- 
ment by a voice from heaven. And, no doubt, " the 
pricks " against which Paul was finding it hard to 
kick were the misgivings which he was having, as to 
its being possible, for many reasons, that Jesus of Naz- 
areth might really be the Messiah, and the fulfilment 
of prophecy, and " the desire of all nations.'' And so, 
in a moment almost, he became another man than he 
had been, with hearing a voice from out of a blinding 
glory say, u I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou per- 
secutest." And thenceforth with him, every age in the 
past, up to Abraham, was a witness for Christ, as also 
was the temple, and the veil of the temple too, and 
the order as to sacrifices, and the law as to clean and 
unclean, and the angel of the covenant, and every other 
angel that ever stooped on this earth for a visit. And 
on hearing the Master speaking from above, and from 
out of glory, at once Paul began to experience that 
change, a Hebrew of the Hebrews though he was, 
through which it seemed to him, with all the nations 
of the earth in full view, that "the law was our 
schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might 
be justified by faith." 

Definite departments, those of nature and spirit as to 
man ! For some purposes, at least, it is certain that 



476 JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 

the flowering of nature is what spirit begins from. 
And it is true, no doubt, as to the resurrection of 
Jesus, that even natural science, as an unbeliever, 
has got to yield its testimony, when the time shall 
have come. And that time will be when some per- 
son shall be wise with the wisdom of this present age, 
and childlike as towards the Spirit of the Universe, 
and God over all. 

Notoriously, this earth hangs upon the sun ; and 
should it then be an improbable thing, that there 
may be a " sun of righteousness " in the light of which, 
and dependent on which, for their best, our souls may 
have their being? Those planets, which are of the 
sisterhood of our earth, as to the sun, affect one 
another in their orbits ; and is it then a thing too 
foreign for thought that, spiritually, we human be- 
ings may be rightly influenced as to our lives, by 
what, as to origin, is " far above all principality and 
power " ? Every atom in this earth of ours, and in 
every human body, is sensitive as to the course of a 
comet; and should it then really be inconceivable 
that, with the Father of lights, there may be thoughts 
as to man, which may have their earthly expression 
at such times as those wherein, historically, and so- 
cially, and spiritually, mankind is as though it were 
reaching up towards heaven, in blind entreaty, at a 
great crisis ? And is it, then, anything incredible ? 
is it even a thing improbable ? and is it not actually, 
as to heaven and earth, and as to all history, and as to 
science also, at its surest, a probability, which is al- 
most like certainty itself, that the condescension of 
the Highest, as to human need at its uttermost, should 
have eventuated in Jesus and the resurrection ? 



JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION. 477 

Soul and body is what we human beings are. And 
bodily, there is nothing wonderful, which can be dis- 
covered for us, as to our connection with the sun or 
the moon or the stars, or with those laws of nature 
which concern this earth especially ; but tenfold more 
than that, and a hundred-fold, we ought to be ready to 
believe as to our poor souls, struggling upwards out of 
sin and spiritual darkness. And, indeed, as countless 
almost as the rays of the sun which are called light, 
must be the connections which there are between 
heaven and earth, spiritually, because of God, " of 
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is 
named." 

And now as to this earth, and all earthiness, 
" Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. ,, 



THE CHUECH AKD THE SPIKIT. 

THE resurrection of Jesus, or his quickening as to 
the body, was not a disconnected fact. It had 
been ordained from before Abraham ; and spiritually, 
it had been intimated during many ages ; and expressly 
it had been foretold in the utterances of Jesus himself. 
And it was the consummation of -Judaism, as to its 
purpose, that, in connection with it, Christ should have 
been "put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
Spirit." On that evening of the first day, when Jesus 
suddenly appeared among the eleven, after his resur- 
rection, he must have said much as to the Scriptures, 
which is quite outside of our ability even to conjec- 
ture about, for want of spiritual understanding. But 
to those eleven astonished apostles Jesus said, u These 
are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet 
with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were 
written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and 
in the Psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their 
understanding that they might understand the Scrip- 
tures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus 
it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead 
the third day. And that repentance and remission of 
sins should be preached in his name among all nations, 
beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of 
these things." And afterwards Jesus said, " Behold, I 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 479 

send the promise of my Father upon you : but tarry 
ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with 
power from on high." 

That promise of the Father, which was revealed to 
the world through the consciousness of Jesus Christ ; 
that prophesying of the Spirit, as to its course, and 
which indeed is characteristic of it, was what was 
verified, at the day of Pentecost. But not to Jesus 
only had that wonderful event been foreshown, for 
also as to its certainty there had been indications from 
the Spirit, through the prophets, from long ages before. 
And so it was that. Peter said to an assemblage of the 
Jews on the day of Pentecost, " Therefore let all the 
house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made 
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord 
and Christ." And his particular citation as to proph- 
ecy is, " that which was spoken by the prophet Joel ; 
and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, 
I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh : and your 
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young 
men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
dreams ; and on my servants and on my handmaidens 
I will pour out in those days of my Spirit ; and they, 
shall prophesy." And of this prophecy thus cited by 
St. Peter, the grandest instances are the Apostle to the 
Gentiles, and Ananias by whom he was cured of his 
blindness, and Peter himself along with Cornelius, that 
centurion of the Italian band. And indeed, it was 
through these four men, and what they experienced in 
vision, or during enhancement by the Spirit, that the 
Gospel got itself extended as an offer to the Gentiles, and 
to people everywhere, who were neither Pharisees nor 



480 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

Sadducees, nor even Galileans. Keligiously, and still 
more ecclesiastically, this is what has never perhaps been 
sufficiently considered. And for persons of competent 
understanding, it would seem to imply what might be 
the death of theological dogmatism. 

Paul was journeying to Damascus, with letters from 
the high-priest, for persecuting the disciples of Jesus, 
when " suddenly there shined round about him a light 
from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a 
voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
me ? And he said, Who art thou, Lord ? And the Lord 
said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest : it is hard 
for thee to kick against the pricks. And he, trembling 
and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do ? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into 
the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." 
And at Damascus there was a man called Ananias, 
and in a vision, just as Paul had heard the Lord, he 
also heard him directing him as to Paul, and where 
he was to be found, and saying, " Go thy way : for he 
is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the 
Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I 
will show him how great things he must suffer for my 
name's sake. And Ananias went his way, and entered 
into the house ; and putting his hands on him, said, 
Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto 
thee in the way as thou earnest, hath sent me, that 
thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the 
Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his 
eyes as it had been scales ; and lie received sight forth- 
with, and arose, and was baptized." 

Simultaneously with the events just narrated, would 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 481 

seem to have been the experiences of Paul and Cor- 
nelius. In Caesarea, Cornelius was an officer in a 
Eoman legion ; but yet he was a Gentile believer in 
the God of Abraham ; and he had a vision, in which 
an angel directed him to send to Peter, and told him 
also of the town and the house where the Apostle 
was to be found. And on this angelic impulse, three 
'persons were sent with a message from a quarter, 
which, for a Jew, was unclean. How, then, was it 
possibly to be received by Peter ? But to Peter also, 
against the arrival of the messengers, there was a 
vision vouchsafed, wherein he saw w^hat was curiously 
significant; and wherein also thrice it was said, "What 
God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." 
wonderful history of that time when, through the 
Spirit, heaven was so close to this earth ! For when 
Peter and Cornelius met, the Jews in the company 
were astonished, "because that on the Gentiles also 
was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they 
heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God." 

What is time on this earth, except as man is con- 
cerned with it ? And so it was well because of the 
coming of Christ, that time as to men should have be- 
gun to count the years afresh. " Power from on high," 
was the promise of Christ as to this earth, as he left it, 
by rising. And when it arrived it was power, adapted 
as to man, by the fatherhood of God. For, indeed, it 
was power of the same origin as that, with the move- 
ment of which, a world without form and void began 
to take shape, and grow, and bring forth, and become 
this surrounding nature. But it is said, " 0, angels 
and visions are so different from stages of develop- 

21 EE 



482 THE CHUKCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

ment, or from the path of nature, as she feels her way 
upwards ! " Is man then properly to be catalogued 
along with the whale or the elephant ? Also if ever 
we men are to be spirits, why should we not be spirit- 
ually met to-day ? And not the Gospel only, nor yet 
along with it, the philosophy also of history, but even 
material science itself, by the way of analogy, would 
demand of men, a state of expectancy as to the Highest, 
and as to " power from on high." 

And as mediator between God and mankind, and as 
foretold by prophets, and as trusted in to-day, what is 
Jesus Christ, but an advance in the human race, a later 
Adam, who was made " a quickening spirit " ? 

In spiritual darkness, what bewilderment there has 
been as to the day of Pentecost ! And as to that day, 
very strangely, some time, on reading, will many things 
seem, which have been written by persons zealous as 
to the letter of the Scripture, and by others, also, who 
have thought as to human nature, that the limitation 
as to experience, of any man, anywhere and in any age, 
should be accounted as the exact measure of human 
susceptibility, as to the Sun of righteousness, during 
all time. For that outpouring of the Spirit was sim- 
ply the quickening of men as to their immortal facul- 
ties and connections, and as to some ways, which are 
latent mostly, by which human beings are " members 
one of another," whether in the flesh, or out of it. And 
that " manifestation of the Spirit " was " power from on 
high " reaching earth, through the " one Mediator be- 
tween God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 

But say some persons, " How was that, and how 
possibly could it have been ? that we could heart- 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 483 

ily think it ! " And is this present a day for such a 
difficulty as that ? In a few years, it will be possible 
for any common man to send his word round the eartli 
in a moment almost, and even almost to converse 
simultaneously with all the chief cities of the world. 
Surely, for a person of ordinary intelligence, a tele- 
graph-office ought to be a humble but sufficient hint 
as to the manner in which, through the Spirit, all souls, 
everywhere, lie open to God and his angels. 

Under high heaven, everywhere, there is the Spirit 
of God ; but rocks and graven images are not as sus- 
ceptible of it as human beings ; nor yet is a cannibal 
open to it, in the same degree, as an ascetic. And what 
Christianity means is that a man living in the spirit 
of Jesus Christ, on this earth may hope and be sure, 
that in some way his soul will be reached by " the 
Comforter which is the Holy Ghost." And the book 
of Acts, as the history of the Spirit, in its connection 
with the first age of the Christian Church, is what any 
man may trust to, as manifesting the condescension 
and love with which he himself is regarded as he goes 
to church as a Christian, or collects himself for medi- 
tation in his closet. # 

At the conversion of the Apostle to the Gentiles, I 
myself was contemplated in the foreknowledge of God, 
as much as Saul, " a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a 
citizen of no mean city." And it was by the same * 
way as that by which the promise looked when it 
said, as to Abraham, " In thee shall all families of the 
earth be blessed." And the vision, which Peter had 
on the seaside, at Joppa, was vouchsafed for me, just 
as certainly as it was in favor of a Eoman centurion, 



484 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

at Cciesarea. And at Athens, on the hill of Mars, when 
Paul addressed the philosophers, Epicureans, and 
Stoics, as to God and the resurrection, I myself was 
preached unto, by the Spirit. Indeed, every miracle 
which is recorded in the book of Acts is connected 
with that Gospel, which is the life of my life, and 
which has been like a light shining in darkness, these 
many hundreds of years. And just as being of faith, 
I am " blessed with faithful Abraham," so also was it 
a matter of as great concern for me as it was for any 
Eoman, when Paul, at Eome, " dwelt two whole years 
in his own hired house, and received all that came in 
unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teach- 
ing those things which concern the. Lord Jesus Christ" 
Jew and Gentile became one in Christ. " For through 
him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Fa- 
ther. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and for- 
eigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the 
household of God ; and are built upon the foundation 
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself be- 
ing the chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building 
fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in 
the JiOrd : in whom ye also are builded together for a 
habitation of God through the Spirit. ,, 

The preceding statement concerns the origin of 
Christianity ; for the Church did not grow, as a sect 
grows to-day. It was not a human undertaking, and 
its leadership was unearthly and strange, for it chose 
as its instruments " the foolish things of the world." 
What an outburst of soul those words of Paul are ! 
A Jew of Tarsus, and a few men in Judsea, fishermen 
mostly, and calling themselves apostles, were opposed 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 485 

to Jerusalem and the temple and the priesthood, 
and to the Eoman Empire, and to Paganism, every- 
where with its thousands of temples. " And base 
things of the world, and things which are despised, 
hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to 
bring to naught things that are ; that no flesh should 
glory in his presence.'' It would seem, tone and style 
being considered, and time and place, that never possi- 
bly could those words have been written by Paul un- 
less by inspiration from that Spirit, which is from 
everlasting to everlasting, and which can choose an 
earthen vessel, wherewith to demolish a kingdom. 
The early Church was quickened in the world by the 
Spirit : and visions, angels, and prophets were agencies 
through which it was acted upon. The Holy Ghost 
was advice, and courage, and inspiration ; and it was 
waited for implicitly. 

Just before Jesus was taken up, he commanded the 
Apostles not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait, and said, 
" Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me 
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." And while 
they were all waiting together in one place, " suddenly 
there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty 
wind, and it filled all the house where they were sit- 
ting. And there were seen tongues flashing about, 
like as of fire, and it rested upon every one of them, 
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and be- 
gan to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them 
utterance." And so the Apostles and others became 
" lively oracles " and instruments of the Spirit. Be- 



486 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

cause of a miracle at the gate of the temple, which 
was called Beautiful, Peter and James were placed as 
criminals before the high-priest. And then what Christ 
had said came true, " But when they shall lead you, 
and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what 
ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate : but whatso- 
ever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye : 
for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." " And 
when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By 
what power or by what name have ye done this ? " and, 
just as had been foretold, the answer which came was 
from " Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost." On being 
discharged, Peter and John joined their friends imme- 
diately. " And when they had prayed, the place was 
shaken where they were assembled together ; and they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the 
word of God with boldness." Ten years after this last 
incident, Peter lay in prison, between two keepers ; and 
unceasing prayer was made for him by the Church. 
a And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, 
and a light shined in the prison : and he smote Peter 
on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise, go 
quickly, and his chains fell off from his hands." 

What happened to Philip was a curious instance of 
the manner in which men were actuated by the Spirit. 
He was at the city of Samaria. " And the angel of the 
Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward 
the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusa- 
lem unto Gaza." And as he went, he met a man who 
had been at Jerusalem to worship ; and who proved to 
be " of great authority under Candace, queen of the 
Ethiopians." He "was returning, and, sitting in his 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 487 

chariot, read Esaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said 
unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot," 
At the end of the conference, the Ethiopian " answered 
and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 
And he commanded the chariot to stand still : and they 
went down both into the water, both Philip and the 
eunuch ; and he baptized him. And when they were 
come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught 
away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more : and 
he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found 
at Azotus." This was an interposition by the Holy 
Ghost, with which, probably, a kingdom was concerned. 
And it w^as an amazing discovery made, as to Ethio- 
pia, in these latter times, by adventurous travellers, 
that it was a country which was Christian, and which, 
also, had churches. 

But we modern Christians, ecclesiastically derive 
from St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, and it wLs 
with a view to us all that Paul was such a manifes- 
tation of the Spirit as he was, and that he was also 
himself such a wonderful interpreter, as to the Spirit. 
Peter, James, and Jude, and almost even John, with 
the rest of the apostles, are like nothing, in comparison 
with Paul, as to the philosophy of revelation, although 
he called himself, as perhaps he may have been, in 
some ways, "the least of the Apostles." 

As to Christianity, Paul wrote to the Galatians, 
" It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's 
womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in 
me." And his start as an Apostle was thus. At Anti- 
och, in the church, there were prophets ; and " as they 
ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost 



488 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work 
whereunto I have called them." It should be noticed, 
that it was by the speech of these prophets, in the 
church, that the Holy Ghost had its utterance. And 
so it was, that Paul was started as an Apostle to the 
Gentiles. And always afterwards, there was an open- 
ing over him, from heaven. He went through Phry- 
gia and about Galatia, but was " forbidden of the Holy 
Ghost to preach the word in Asia " ; and when he 
wished to go into Bithynia, it was not what " the Spirit 
suffered." Soon afterwards " a vision appeared to Paul 
in the night; there stood a man of Macedonia, and 
prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and 
help us. And after he had seen the vision, immedi- 
ately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly 
gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the 
gospel unto them." A year after this, Paul was at 
Athens, and by a few words of his on the hill of Mars, 
Plato and Epicurus were surpassed. From Athens he 
went to Corinth, where he was rejected by most of the 
Jews. And in that city, he lodged with a man whose 
house was close to the synagogue. " Then spake the 
Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, 
but speak, and hold not thy peace ; for I am with thee, 
and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee : for I have 
much people in this city." In connection with this 
vision, it is well to remember how famous the name 
of Corinth has been ever since, because of the " mani- 
festation of the Spirit " in the church there, and as to 
which Paul wrote. After some five or six years, Paul 
was at Miletus, whence he sent for the elders of the 
church at Ephesus ; because he was feeling himself 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 489 

hedged in upon a road, from which he could not hold 
back, and because of which " they should see his face 
no more." He reviewed his life amongst them ; and he 
exhorted them ; and he prayed with them. And a very 
affecting time it was. "And now, behold, I go bound 
in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things 
that shall befall me there : save that the Holy Ghost 
witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflic- 
tions abide me." At Jerusalem, the high-priest Anani- 
as was awaiting him ; and also the Lord, in a vision ; and 
at Malta, a shipwreck was about to be his experience. 

Paul had advanced to Csesarea, when there hap- 
pened a curious incident, as to the manner in which 
the Holy Ghost would sometimes express itself. " And 
as we tarried there many days, there came down from 
Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus. And when 
he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound 
his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy 
Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man 
that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the 
hands of the Gentiles." On the stairs of the castle, at 
Jerusalem, Paul though in custody, had leave to speak, 
which he did in Hebrew. And he told of the manner 
of his conversion at Damascus, and of his hearing 
Jesus speak, and also of his return afterwards to Je- 
rusalem, where he both saw Christ and heard him. 
"And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to 
Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was 
in a trance ; and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, 
and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem : for they will 
not receive thy testimony concerning me. And I said, 
Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every 
21* 



490 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

synagogue them that believed on thee : and when the 
blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was 
standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept 
the raiment of them that slew him. And he said unto 
me, Depart ; for I will send thee far hence unto the 
Gentiles." By these words, then and on the next day, 
the Jews were greatly enraged. "And when there 
arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest 
Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, com- 
manded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by 
force from among them, and to bring him into the 
castle. And the night following the Lord stood by 
him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul ; for as thou 
hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear 
witness also at Eome" On the voyage to Italy, the 
vessel in which he was embarked, was in great danger 
for a long time. But said Paul, " There stood by me 
this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I 
serve, saying, Fear not, Paul ; thou must be brought 
before Csesar : and, lo, God hath given thee all them 
that sail with thee." 

The preceding two or three pages, not one person in 
ten will read intelligently, without being much sur- 
prised. Such talk as there has been, and such folly also 
as to the Fathers of the Church, and the Founders ! 
Not Augustine, great, good man as he was, nor any- 
body between him and St. Clement, nor yet St. Clem- 
ent himself, ought ever to have been accounted as a 
Father. And were James and John and Peter and 
Paul truly founders of the Church, though so often 
they have been so called ? No founders at all were 
they ; for they were but " earthen vessels," as Paul 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 491 

himself would have said. Precisely, they were mere 
earthen vessels, through which the Spirit could speak 
among men, and act. 

The true Church is the Church of the Spirit. And 
it is not anything, either as to place or state of in- 
telligence, wherein one believer can say, " I am of 
Paul ; and another, I am of Apollos." the grand- 
eur, spiritually, of those words of Paul himself ! 
They are the words of an Apostle, who was so great, 
as to the Spirit, because, partly, of his ability for self- 
humiliation. And these are the words, " Who then 
is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye 
believed, even as the Lord gave to every man ? I have 
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 
So, then, neither is he that planteth anything, neither 
he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase." 

But there is something more yet to be learned from 
the history of Paul. He was converted in a mo- 
ment. And what happened to Saul the persecutor, 
is what is possible, in some degree, for everybody, at 
this present day. For though Jesus does not now ap- 
pear in vision, yet w because ye are sons, God hath 
sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." 

It was, as they were taught by the Comforter, and 
as they had things brought to their remembrance by 
the Holy Ghost, that the Apostles came at last to un- 
derstand what their Master had been and was become. 
It was by the Spirit that they were endowed and sent 
and guided as Apostles. 

The discipleship of Paul began very differently from 
that of the other Apostles. Perhaps, personally, he 
had never " known Christ -after the flesh," and it is 



492 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

certain that he assisted at the martyrdom of Stephen. 
Paul was the convert of Christ in glory. And in 
Paul, Judaism itself was converted, and became lu- 
minous with the Spirit, and a witness for Christ. It 
was in spirit that Paul saw and heard Jesus ; and even 
the gospel, w T hich he preached, he had by the Spirit. 
He speaks of there being to be a judgment of " the 
secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." 
He tells of a meeting at Jerusalem, with which even 
Peter was concerned, and says, " But of these who 
seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it 
maketh no matter to me : God accepteth no man's per- 
son :) for they who seemed to be somewhat in confer- 
ence added nothing to me." And what even he told 
the Corinthians, as to the Lord's Supper, was what 
Jesus Christ had told him. " For I have received of 
the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That 
the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was be- 
trayed took bread : and when he had given thanks, he 
brake it, and said, Take, eat : this is my body, which 
is broken for you : this do in remembrance of me." 

That last evening of the earthly life of Jesus was the 
subject of a revelation to Paul. Does that seem to be 
a strange, inconceivable thing ? Yet it is incredible, 
altogether, only because of inconsideration. In com- 
mon life, there are things which might hint psycho- 
logically, as to its possibility. And an electric tele- 
gram is no mean argument as to its probability. 

When " suddenly there shone from heaven a great 
light round about " ; and when a voice was heard say- 
ing, " I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest," 
it may well have been that electrically, magnetically, 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 493 

spiritually, Jesus was revealed in the mind of Paul, 
with all the suddenness of a flash, and the fulness of 
a gospel. For that voice which was heard was the 
voice of Jesus himself, and therefore of all that ever 
Jesus had been, or thought, or done, or endured. 

Twenty-four years after his conversion, Paul wrote 
his Epistle to the Galatians, in which he tells of what 
his zeal and knowledge had been as a Jew ; and of its 
having pleased God to reveal his Son in him ; and of 
the little intercourse which he had ever had with the 
other Apostles. " But I certify you, brethren, that the 
gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 
For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught 
it, but by the revelation of Jesus Chpist." 

Perhaps it was because of his state theologically as 
well as fervently, that Paul was approachable, for con- 
version, in the way through which he was, by Christ 
in glory. And in the history of Christianity, and as 
concerning its development, it is certainly a very sig- 
nificant fact, that the Spirit should have obtained its 
broadest, deepest, and highest interpretation through 
a man who was not even one of the twelve. 

It would seem to be of the essence of Christianity, 
that " Christ is the head of the Church," and that " the 
head of Christ is God." Times and seasons may not 
always be the same for the Church, any more than they 
are for the world, which changes from day to day, with 
the course of time and the discoveries of science. And 
Jesus, at " the head of all principality and power," and 
with many millions of souls calling themselves by his 
name, in regard to interest and administration, may be 
as certainly " the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls " 



494 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

as when he came within sight of Stephen, when he 
was about to be martyred, or as when he showed him- 
self on a plane, so near to this earth, as that Paul 
could hear him speak. Miracles are not for every age 
perhaps, and certainly not for every day and hour, or 
else they would soon cease to be " signs and wonders." 

Says St. Paul, " No man can say that Jesus is the 
Lord but by the Holy Ghost." No doubt this senti- 
ment is in accordance with the manner of his own 
conversion. But yet what person is there to-day, 
who has that knowledge as to the Spirit, for which, 
reasonably, Paul ought to be credited ? And it is 
plain, that we live by our affinities spiritually, as surely 
as our bodies last on, by those affinities, which they 
have for air and food, through the lungs and the stomach. 
An earnest aspiration is the opening of a channel be- 
tween man and God : and an act in the spirit of Christ 
is affinity with him, wherever he may be. And there 
are ways which psychology knows of, and as to which 
even the science of nature has its corroborations, by 
which it would seem that the recognition of Jesus as 
" the head over all things to the church," might be as 
simple as the way by which the eye finds the place 
of the sun at noonday. It is true, that every day is 
not clear at noon ; and it is true, also, that many a 
man is living by the Holy Ghost, who cannot think 
himself that he is living so, because of his humility, 
or because of his " philosophy falsely so called." 

There must be spiritual affinity in some way, how- 
ever humble, before a person can be reached by the 
Holy Ghost; for a statue of stone has never yet 
been quickened. And Jerusalem, which is from above, 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 495 

has many ways which reach down towards this earth, 
but they do not open in every age, and over all places, 
alike. 

The philosophy of the whole material universe is 
involved in my body, and in its various organs and 
faculties, — in my eyes, ears, lungs, heart, and ability 
for action. In the atmosphere of the sun, there can be 
no great disturbance, but it reports itself in me. And 
myself, I could not go to New York, probably, but 
the planet Uranus would have some sense of my jour- 
ney. And now is it not strange that my body, my 
old coat of clay, should be so wonderful; and yet 
that it should be so hard for me to believe in my 
spiritual relations, and even in the mere possibility of 
there being either help for me, or detriment in the in- 
visible ? And yet there is nothing more simple and 
natural, if only I could think so, than that with be- 
lieving in the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, I should have the Spirit of His Son come in 
upon my soul. , 

Before a man can see, he must open his eyes and 
look. As to God, it is written that " without faith it 
is impossible to please him," — faith enough, that is to 
say, for making a man open his eyes and consider. 
" For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, 
and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek 
him." "Widely different as to spiritual results are even 
these two states, — that of denial as to spiritual influ- 
ences, and that of expectant dependence on heaven, 
even when doubtful as to whether it has itself ever been 
met. But, indeed, probably there is not a thought 
which I have of any weight, but is the weightier be- 



496 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

cause of some personage or law of the spiritual world. 
It was a glorious utterance of Christ, which concerned 
me, personally, when arguing from parental love as 
to its readiness with children, he exclaimed, " How 
much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
Spirit to them that ask him ? " As a Christian, I 
am cautioned against incidentally incurring a condi- 
tion, wherein Satan might tempt me. On my repent- 
ance of evil, I am told that there is joy among the 
angels of God. And I know that in my true prayers, 
" the Spirit itself maketh intercession " for me. All 
round my spiritual sphere, I am open; and it is at 
my own choice, whether or not I will be divinely 
connected. And just as I was " blest with faithful 
Abraham," so also was I involved spiritually in the his- 
tory of the Jewish Church. And every miracle which 
is recorded in the New Testament happened on my 
behalf. The messengers who went to Peter, at Joppa, 
were a deputation on my behalf, because of a vision, 
which a centurion ^iad. And when Paul was con- 
verted, it was partly because I was one of the Gentiles, 
for whom he was to be started as an Apostle. And 
those miracles, and all the other miracles of the Scrip- 
tures are signs, or sign-posts, by which it was intended 
that we Christians should be aided in placing ourselves 
aright as to mental attitude before Heaven, and con- 
formably also with those forces, invisible and occult, 
which sweep round the world, and which sometimes 
aid in shaping the souls of men, and sometimes also in 
confounding them. 

What then ! are we to be expecting the age of the 
Apostles over ^gain, and those manifestations of the 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 497 

Spirit, by which it was accompanied ? No ! for never 
does time go backward : and also the administration, 
which is from above always is providential and on- 
going. And truly, many of the gifts, by which the 
Spirit manifested itself in the earliest days of the 
Church, ought to-day to be accounted but like food for 
" babes in Christ." But yet not improbably, they may 
[all reappear, in the Church, for a time, when people 
shall begin to be doubtful about the rationalism and 
ritualism, and the mere way of tradition, by which, 
respectively, to a great degree, they have been living 
" in a vain show " of Christianity. And indeed it is 
possible, that the Spirit may be more ready with its 
minor manifestations than many Christians can easily 
suppose. 

The gifts of the Spirit are not all of them of the 
same significance : just as the faculties, by which man 
is better than dogs, are not of uniform excellence. 
The mere working of miracles does not argue as much 
power mentally, as the discerning of spirits. The 
faculty of speaking in divers kinds of tongues might 
be worthless almost, unless a person were present with 
a gift for the interpretation of tongues. And even the 
two gifts conjointly, would apparently, by St. Paul, 
have been accounted inferior to " the word of wisdom/' 
Also a man might have the Spirit manifest itself 
through him, without his being, himself, in the least 
degree, the better for it ; for by " the word of wisdom " 
a man might be the mouthpiece of power from above, 
and yet himself remain unenlightened, though a wonder 
all the while, and a spectacle to angels and men. 
The Spirit can do better than quicken the nature of 

FF 



498 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

man superficially, even though thereby, for the time, it 
may be made to flash with "wonders. 

The Spirit, as to manifestation, finds and takes us 
human beings, as its instruments, according to its own 
wisdom. And, therefore, among the twelve, there was 
a Judas, in order that the other eleven might plainly 
seem to be " earthen vessels." The manifestation of 
the Spirit, through individuals, by signs and winders, 
is but an indication, on the surface, of those powers 
by which men are all influenced, as being the offspring 
of God. And Paul, and Peter, and Ananias of Damas- 
cus, and Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian band, are 
instances of the manner in which men are divinely 
dealt with, as individuals and as nations both. 

And at this present time, the Spirit may be trusted 
for some other manifestations than what were made 
through Jews and Gentiles eighteen centuries ago. 
Age after age, more and more susceptible of the 
fashioning power of the Spirit, did this earth be- 
come as it slowly grew into shape, and supported 
the creatures that swarmed and raced about it. Pro- 
gress is recognized as being a law as to human 
beings, even though the way of it may be through 
darkness often, and with convulsions for its footsteps. 
And in the Christian Church it cannot be otherwise, 
than that with ripening under heaven, one generation 
after another, souls on earth should generally have 
become susceptible through the Spirit to some diviner 
issues than could well have been manifested while 
Nero was emperor of the world, or than even at the 
time when Constantine became a Christian, and the 
first Christian emperor of Eome. And if only a little 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 499 

something more were developed as to its state, or sup- 
plied, never would the world have been as open to the 
Spirit as it is at this time, by predispositions accruing 
from politics, and from science, and from good- will 
among men towards one another. 

In that region, whence we mortals are acted upon 
spiritually, it is written, " that one day is with the Lord 
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
day." Probably it is far off as yet, still, as St. Paul 
would say, it is nearer than when we Christians first 
believed, — that New Jerusalem, which St. John saw 
in vision, and as to which he said, " I John saw the 
holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out 
of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her hus- 
band." And latterly men prophetic, in one way and 
another, have had sight of that New Jerusalem as an 
ideal, without well knowing what it was, and have 
thereby become reformers as to the ways of this world. 
And poets, in the quiet of meditation, have felt their 
souls strangely attuned, without suspecting, perhaps, 
that it was by the music which is made by heaven as 
it draws nearer to earth. 

The agonizing doubts which many Christians are 
having, are but the throes of souls in bondage to 
creeds, who are struggling, unconsciously, for "the 
glorious liberty of the children of God." At this 
time every sect almost, and even the Papal, is more 
sharply divided against itself than it is against its 
neighbors. And this is because of that quickening of 
the Spirit, which mere traditionary belief cannot en- 
dure, and always resists. What was said to the dis- 
ciples, by Jesus Christ, as to the end of the world, 



500 THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 

involves the philosophy of the universe, intellectually, 
as to its grander periods. And wars and rumors of wars, 
of which there have latterly been so many, and earth- 
quakes and pestilences in different places, and the rise 
of false prophets are signs of the times, and of the 
pressure downwards of power from on high. Jesus 
said to the disciples, " I came not to send peace but a 
sword,'' and this was because even of his being the 
Prince of Peace ; for there is nothing which so exas- 
perates evil as the presence of goodness. Also, of the 
nature of the times, wherein we are living, Spiritualism 
is evidence, for it finds that the veil is grown thin, 
which separates between us denizens of nature and 
some of the dwellers in the sphere of spirit ; and 
it shows also that civilized people are, psychically, 
more sensitive, at the present moment, than probably 
they ever have been before. The heavens are being 
bowed towards the earth ; and there are signs of the 
nearer coming of the Son of Man, even though from a 
quarter where indeed a thousand years are as one 
day. It may be a long while, before the kingdoms 
of this world will become the suburbs of the New 
Jerusalem ; but yet of that city of God as archetypal 
there is more thought in the minds of men to-day, 
than ever there has been before ; and slowly but 
surely the ways of this world, politically, are being 
drawn out, in a manner, by which they can be met, 
by those streets which reach down, spiritually, from 
above. 

Already there is about us the atmosphere of " that 
great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of 
heaven." And happy are they who have any sense 



THE CHURCH AND THE SPIRIT. 501 

of it ! For thereby they have become kings and priests 
unto God and the Father, ancl are clear of this earth 
as to priestcraft and darkness. 

Let those who are u taught of the Lord " teach what 
they learn. Let those who have "joy in the Holy 
Ghost " not fear to show it. Let those who are quick- 
ened from within as to righteousness, they know not 
how, trust that perhaps they are prophets of the Spirit. 
And let every one who catches a strain, like the song 
which John heard in the Spirit, repeat it as best he 
can for his fellow-creatures. 

"Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God 
Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of 
saints." 



INDEXES. 



INDEX TO TEXTS QUOTED. 



Page 




Page 




2. 


Luke xvi. 31. 


123. 


Acts vii. 53. 


3. 


2 Kings vi. 6. 


ti 


Hebrews ii. 2. 


10. 


Matthew xv. 33. 


u 


1 Timothy vi. 15. 


14. 


Ezekiel xxx. iii. 32. 


a 


Revelation i. 1. 


21. 


James v. 15. 


125. 


Numbers xii, 6. 


24. 


Mark vi. 5. 


126. 


Luke xxiv. 45. 


33. 


1 Corinthians ii. 10. 


127. 


2 Kings vi. 17. 


u 


Romans viii. 26. 


130. 


Luke v. 12. 


47. 


1 Corinthians xv. 44. 


a 


1 Samuel ix. 9. 


ti 


2 Kings vi. 17. 


131. 


Jeremiah xiv. 14. 


48. 


2 Samuel xxiii. 2. 


132. 


Zechariah xiii. 2. 


75. 


Acts iii. 4. 


U 


Jeremiah xxvi. 9. 


76. 


Daniel ii. 28. 


U 


Jeremiah ii. 8. 


u 


Deuteronomy iii. 3. 


u 


Numbers xxiv. 4. 


77. 


Exodus viii. 19. 


a 


Judges vi. 34. 


M 


Mark ix. 39. 


133. 


1 Corinthians xii. 4, 7. 


78. 


John vi. 30. 


u 


1 Corinthians vi. 17. 


79. 


1 Corinthians xii. 28. 


134. 


Judges xiv. 5. 


u 


John xx. 29. 


a 


2 Corinthians xii. 10. 


CI 


Matthew xxiv. 24. 


it 


Judges vi. 12. 


II 


Ephesians vi. 12. 


a 


Judges vii. 18. 


80. 


2 Thessalonians ii. 9. 


a 


2 Samuel xxiii. 2. 


M 


1 John iv. 1. 


135. 


Luke ii. 26. 


u 


Eevelation xix. 20. 


a 


Acts vi. 10, 15. 


81. 


1 Corinthians xii. 10. 


a 


Revelation i. 11. 


u 


Matthew vii. 16. 


136. 


1 Kings xiii. 26. 


83. 


Romans viii. 9. 


u 


1 Samuel x. 10. 


84. 


1 Corinthians ii. 11. 


ti 


1 Samuel xi. 6. 


85. 


1 Corinthians xv. 45. 


u 


1 Samuel xvi. 14. 


91. 


1 Timothy iv. 14. 


ii 


1 Samuel xix. 23. 


92. 


Luke xix. 37. 


137. 


1 Kings iii. 18. 


u 


Luke xix. 40. 


138. 


Numbers xii. 2. 


95. 


Isaiah vi. 5. 


u 


Exodus xxi. 18. 


u 


Psalms cxliv. 5. 


139. 


2 Samuel xii. 7. 


106. 


John iv. 23. 


a 


John xi. 51. 


u 


John xx. 29. 


a 


Galatians ii. 8, 11. 


110. 


John v. 8. 


140. 


Acts xix. 11. 


113. 


Exodus vii. 11. 


u 


2 Corinthians xii. 2. 


M 


1 Samuel xxviii. 13. 


u 


1 Corinthians xiv. 18. 


bi 


Matthew xxii. 31. 


141. 


1 Corinthians ix. 27. 


114. 


2 Timothy i. 10. 


u 


Galatians i. 15. 


116. 


2 Corinthians iii. 15. 


149. 


Ephesians vi. 12. 


119. 


Genesis xlix. 29. 


u 


Isaiah xxix. 11. 


122. 


Acts x. 10. 


167. 


Revelation i. 10. 


u 


Acts xi. 15. 


u 


Revelation ii. 7. 


123. 


John x. 35. 


170. 


1 John iii. 2. 



506 



INDEX TO TEXTS QUOTED. 



171. 


Romans viii. 26, 23. 


274. 


1 Corinthians ii. 9. 


it 


1 Corinthians xv. 44. 


278. 


Matthew x. 28. 


174. 


Romans viii. 16. 


279. 


1 Corinthians xvi. 17. 


182. 


Joel ii. 28. 


280. 


Genesis xxviii. 2. 


a 


Revelation i. 6. 


-281. 


John xiv. 12. 


190. 


Isaiah viii. 19. 


282. 


1 Corinthians xv. 28. 


a 


John iii. 8. 


284. 


Romans viii. 16. 


198. 


Acts xvi. 16. 


286. 


Matthew xxviii. 2. 


202. 


Psalms xxxix. 3. 


288. 


2 Corinthians v. 1. 


204. 


Luke ix. 49. 


299. 


Numbers xi. 26. 


206. 


2 Corinthians xi. 14. 


300. 


Matthew xi. 25. 


209. 


1 Timothy iv. 1. 


301. 


Isaiah xlix. 15. 


217. 


Romans viii. 17. 


302. 


Job xii. 7. 


221. 


1 Corinthians xiii. 12. 


309. 


Tobit xii. 15. 


223. 


Job xxxii. 7. 


310. 


Daniel x. 10. 


229. 


John xiv. 11. 


314. 


Hebrews v. 12. 


it 


Matthew xxiv. 24. 


316. 


1 Corinthians ii. 13. 


230. 


2 Thessalonians ii. 9. 


318. 


Numbers xxii. 5. 


u 


Revelation v. 13. 


320. 


1 Corinthians xii. 8. 


u 


Revelation xiii. 13. 


326. 


2 Kings v. 11. 


(( 


Mark xvi. 17. 


329. 


Romans i. 3. 


231. 


Mark xiii. 22. 


332. 


Job xxxiii. 14. 


u 


Matthew vii. 22. 


333. 


Numbers xii. 6. 


232. 


1 John iv. 1. 


a 


Joel ii. 27. 


a 


1 Corinthians xiv. 32. 


334. 


Acts xviii. 9. 


233. 


Job xxxiii. 14. 


342. 


John i. 14. 


234. 


Matthew xvii. 1. 


343. 


Numbers ix. 10. 


a 


Mark vi. 4. 


a 


1 Samuel xvi. 12. 


u 


John vii. 31. 


344. 


Jeremiah i. 5. 


235. 


Matthew xii. 22. 


it 


Amos vii. 14. 


u 


Luke xii. 56. 


t( 


Judges iv. 4. 


it 


Matthew x. 24. 


345. 


1 Kings iii. 5. 


237. 


Matthew xii. 39. 


u 


1 Kings x. 3. 


238. 


John ix. 13. 


cc 


1 Kings xvii. 10. 


a 


John xi. 48. 


it 


2 Kings iv. 8. 


239. 


John xiv. 11. 


346. 


1 Kings xxii. 14. 


a 


Mark vi. 2. 


347. 


Hosea vi. 4. 


a 


Mark v. 28. 


348. 


Amos vii. 12. 


(i 


Matthew viii. 10. 


349. 


Luke vii. 25. 


241. 


Luke x. 17. 


u 


Ezekiel xxxiii. 30. 


242. 


Acts xiv. 9. 


350. 


Leviticus xvii. 7. 


243. 


Acts i? 7. 


u 


Deuteronomy xxxii. 17. 


a 


Acts iii. 19. 


351. 


Judges ii. 12. 


u 


Matthew xvii. 20. 


tt 


Jeremiah ii. 8. 


249. 


1 Corinthians i. 21. 


a 


2 Chronicles xi. 15. 


250. 


John vi. 26. 


352. 


2 Kings i. 2. 


251. 


Exodus iv. 8. 


a 


1 Kings xx. 22. 


252. 


Mark viii. 17. 


353. 


Jeremiah vii. 18, 23. 


253. 


1 Kings xiii. 18. 


356. 


1 Samuel ix. 5. 


254. 


Acts viii. 18. 


357. 


2 Kings v. 3. 


259. 


1 Corinthians iii. 1. 


tt 


2 Kings vi. 12. 


261. 


1 Corinthians x. 11. 


u 


Exodus xxxi. 2. 


263. 


Revelation xxii. 1. 


it 


1 Chronicles xxviii. 11. 


266. 


1 Corinthians xii. 13. 


358. 


2 Samuel xxiii. 1. 


268. 


Ecclesiastes xi. 5. 


n 


Deuteronomy xx. 4. 


270. 


John iii. 11. 


u 


1 Kings xx. 13. 


273. 


Habakkuk i. 16. 


359. 


2 Kings vii. 1. 



INDEX TO TEXTS QUOTED. 



507 



359. 


Exodus xviii. 15. 


418. 


James iv. 8. 


360. 


Numbers xxvii. 21. 


u 


Matthew xviii. 20. 


44 


Deuteronomy xvii. 9. 


ii 


Hebrews xi. 6. 


ii 


1 Samuel x. 19. 


419. 


Acts i. 4. 


361. 


1 Kings xix. 15. 


ii 


Acts ii. 1. 


44 


2 Kings ix. 1. 


it 


John xx. 22. 


tc 


2 Kings iii. 11. 


ii 


Acts v. 32. 


362. 


Zechariah iv. 1. 


u 


Acts x. 44. 


364. 


Isaiah xxviii. 13. 


420. 


Genesis xii. 2. 


372. 


Deuteronomy iv. 7. 


" 


Matthew vii. 11. 


376. 


Daniel vii. 9. 


ii 


Job xxxiii. 16. 


IC 


Ezekiel i. 19. 


421. 


2 Peter i. 21. 


389. 


Haggai ii. 7. 


ii 


John xiv. 16. 


391. 


Galatians iii. 8. 


u 


Matthew x. 20. 


393. 


Isaiah ii. 2. 


a 


Luke xii. 12. 


u 


Malachi iii. 1. 


it 


Job xxxii. 8. 


394. 


Matthew xxiii. 37. 


422. 


Galatians iv. 6. 


»c 


Malachi iv. 5. 


423. 


Acts viii. 17. 


a 


John i. 32. 


426. 


Matthew xvii. 10. 


395. 


Galatians iv. 5. 


t< 


2 Kings ii. 15. 


397. 


Mark i. 12. 


427. 


Luke i. 17. 


u 


Ezekiel iii. 14. 


ii 


Galatians iii. 19. 


u 


Daniel viii. 27. 


CI 


Galatians iii. 8. 


398. 


Luke xxii. 42. 


u 


Revelation xxi. 3. 


402. 


Hebrews x. 7. 


429. 


1 Corinthians iii. 16. 


403. 


Genesis xxxi. 13. 


430. 


Mark i. 13. 


it 


Exodus iii. 2. 


ii 


Matthew xi. 11. 


404. 


Exodus xiii. 21. 


431. 


John i. 32. 


ii 


Numbers xiv. 14. 


u 


Matthew xi. 2. 


u 


Exodus xxiii. 20. 


u 


Matthew xi. 4. 


405. 


Isaiah lxiii. 8. 


u 


Luke iv. 16. 


u 


Malachi iii. 1. 


432. 


Luke iv. 29. 


406. 


Revelation i. 4. 


433. 


John iii. 34. 


407. 


1 John iv. 1. 


ii 


John v. 20. 


ii 


1 Corinthians xiv. 29. 


cc 


Mark xiii. 11. 


a 


1 Corinthians xii. 10. 


(i 


Matthew x. 20. 


408. 


1 Corinthians xiv. 18. 


u 


Luke ii. 25. 


u 


1 Corinthians xiii. 1. 


434. 


Romans viii. 16. 


409. 


John iii. 34. 


ii 


1 John ^. 6. 


it 


John i. 51. 


435. 


John iii. 2. 


ic 


Genesis xxviii. 12. 


44 


John viii. 48. 


410. 


Malachi iv. 5. 


436. 


Hebrews vii. 15. 


u 


Matthew xi. 9. 


441. 


John xv. 27. 


411. 


Luke ix. 28. 


ti 


John xiv. 26. 


ii 


John xii. 28. 


443. 


Isaiah xiv. 10. 


412. 


1 Peter i. 11. 


445. 


Micah vii. 4. 


M 


Matthew xvii. 9. 


ll 


Malachi iv. 5. 


41 


Acts x. 3. 


II 


Matthew xvi. 14. 


11 


Acts x. 10. 


(I 


Matthew xvii. 12. 


11 


Daniel x. 9. 


446. 


Luke ii. 34. 


413. 


Genesis xv. 12. 


u 


Luke xix. 42. 


u 


Acts xxii. 14. 


447. 


Matthew xxiii. 35. 


u 


Acts xxii. 17. 


448. 


Luke i. 88. 


414. 


2 Corinthians xii. 2. 


449. 


Matthew xiii. 14. 


416. 


Genesis xlix. 1. 


450. 


John xx. 26. 


ii 


1 Samuel iii. 1. 


452. 


Hebrews i. 6. 


417. 


Numbers xii. 6. 


455. 


John xii. 32. 



508 



INDEX TO TEXTS QUOTED. 



455. 


Luke ix. 7. 


478. 


457. 


Ephesians i. 10. 
Matthew vi. 22. 


u 


458. 


479. 


459. 


Matthew xxvii. 19. 


480. 


460. 


John xi. 51. 


u 


u 


Luke xxiii. 43. 


481. 


u 


John xx. 17. 


u 


a 


1 Peter iii. 19. 


484. 


u 


Matthew xxvii. 45. 


u 


461. 


Luke xxiii. 45. 


485. 


462. 


Matthew xxvii. 50. 


u 


<t 


Hebrews ix. 3. 


u 


463. 


1 Corinthians xv. 35. 


486. 


464. 


Hebrews i. 3. 


u 


tt 


Matthew xxvii 63. 


u 


465. 


Psalms xvi. 10. 


(C 


u 


John xix. 40. 


a 


u 


Matthew xxviii. 2. 


487. 


466. 


Acts ii. 2. 


tt 


tt 


Acts xvi. 25. 


488. 


tt 


Daniel x. 7. 


u 


467. 


1 Peter iii. 18. 


u 


u 


Ecclesiasticus xlviii. 13. 


u 


u 


2 Kings xiii. 21. 


489. 


468. 


Genesis v. 24. 


tc 


u 


Deuteronomy xxxiv. 6. 


u 


469. 


John xx. 17. 


490. 


u 


John xx. 27. 


u 


u 


Ephesians iv. 10. 


491. 


u 


Luke xxiv. 39. 


492. 


470. 


Acts i. 9. 


u 


it 


Acts vi. 15. 


11 


u 


Acts vii. 55. 


493. 


u 


2 Timothy i. 10. 


u 


471. 


1 Corinthians xv. 55. 


•494. 


u 


Matthew vii. 6. 


495. 


472. 


Luke ii. 52. 


496. 


473. 


1 Corinthians xv. 44. 


499. 


k 


Psalms cxliv. 3. 


a 


474. 


Mark xvi. 19. 


500. 


« 


John iii. 12. 


a 


475. 


Galatians iii. 24. 


501. 


477. 


1 Corinthians xv. 57. 





,28. 



Luke xxiv. 44. 
Luke xxiv. 49. 
Acts ii. 36. 
Acts ix. 3. 
Acts ix. 15. 
Acts x. 15. 
Acts x. 45. 
Acts xxviii. 30. 
Ephesians ii. 18. 
1 Corinthians i. 
Acts i. 8. 
Acts ii. 4. 
Mark xiii. 11. 
Acts iv. 7. 
Acts iv. 31. 
Acts xii. 7. 
Acts viii. 26. 
Galatians i. 15. 
Acts xiii. 2. 
Acts xvi. 6. 
Acts xvi. 7. 
Acts xvi. 9. 
Acts xviii. 9. 
Acts xx. 22. 
Acts xxi. 20. 
Actsxxii. 17. 
Acts xxiii. 10. 
Acts xxvii. 23. 
1 Corinthians iii. 5. 
Romans ii. 16. 
Galatians ii. 6. 
1 Corinthians xi. 23. 
Galatians i. 11. 
1 Corinthians xi. 3. 
1 Corinthians xii. 3. 
Hebrews xi. 6. 
Luke xi. 13. 
Kevelation xxi. 2. 
Romans viii. 21. 
Matthew x. 34. 
Kevelation xxi. 10. 
Revelation xv. 3. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



Amos and the priest, 348. 
Angel of the covenant. 463. 

" " presence, 405. 
Angels, in the Scriptures, 120. 

" and the Jewish law, 373. 

" and God, 403. 
Anthropomorphism, 370. 
Anti-supernaturalism, 3, 24, 91, 168, 
293, 296, 332, 364, 385, 390, 
402, 422, 434, 437, 442. 459, 
471, 479, 483. 
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 177. 
Arago, D. F. J., 51. 
Atheism, a word as to, 307. 
Augustine, St., 212. 

Baker, Rachel, 99. 

Barclay, Robert, 16. 

Baxter, Richard, 23, 82, 120. 

Belief, intelligent, 365. 

Bible, the, and mistranslations, 118. 

Blind leaders of the blind, 40, 301, 

305, 312, 336. 
Blindness, spiritual, 149. 

H to from scholar- 

ship, 104. 

" " from science, 40. 

Bohme, Jacob, 13. 
Bonaventura, St., 192. 
Bridget, St., 99. 
Buchner, Dr., 63, 297. 

Cassaubon, Isaac, 159. 

Catholic and Protestant, 98, 116, 119, 

201, 225, 297, 313. 
Charity as a means to knowledge, 

221. 
China praised, 214. 
Christianity, the beginning of, 391. 
" the essence of, 493. 

" the meaning of, 483. 

Chrysostom, St. John, 87. 
Church, the, and the Spirit, 28, 478. 

" the true, 491. 
Church-going, 338, 418. 
Cicero, 144, 331. 



Clairvoyance, 174, 271, 297. 
Clement, the Recognitions of, 186. 
Commonwealth of England, 247. 
Confucius, 424. 

Cudworth, Ralph, 168, 186, 245. 
Cupertino, St. Joseph of, 100. 

Demoniacs, 116. 

u modern, 91. 

Dream, that of Pilate's wife, 459. 
Dreaming, the natural oracle, 325, 

331, 337. 
Dreams and the Scriptures, 332. 

" two, 179. 
Dupotet, the Baron, 424. 

Ecstatics, 152. 

" and witchcraft, 159. 
Endor, the woman of, 113. 

Faith, 243, 474, 495. 
Farmer Hugh, 48, 73, 192. 
Ficinus Marsilius, 61. 
Forum, the Roman, 148. 
Fox, George, 13, 202, 219. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 129. 
Froude, J. A., 57. 
Fulness of the time, 456. 

Gibbon, E., 147. 

God, as the Creator, 43. 

" and his angels, 120. 

" and man, 278, 281, 341, 418, 

" and nature, 49, 302, 373. 

" and the peculiar people, 377. 

" and the soul, 301. 

" the Church of, 484. 
Gods, false, 112. 
Goethe, 307. 
Greatrex, 99, 297. 

Hades, 115. 

Heathenism and Christianity, 147, 

316. 
Herbert, Lord of Cherbury, 40. 
Hitchcock, E. A., 54. 



510 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



Homer, 331. 

Honesty the best policy, 24, 72. 

Immortality and Judaism, 114. 

" " Paganism, 113. 

Inspiration, the nature of, 319. 

" universality of, 76, 317, 

327. 
Jesus, 329. 

" variously apprehended, 435. 
14 and the 'Spirit, 397, 430. 
44 • and the crucifixion, 460. 
44 and the resurrection, 452, 478. 
44 and the Jews, 446. 
Jews, the, as a peculiar people, 377. 
44 at the coming of Christ, 382. 
" and Plato, 369. 
John, the Gospel of, 441. 
Josephus, 387. 
Judaism and mankind, 392. 

Knowledge and ignorance, 70. 

Lachish, Simeon Ben., 83. 
Lateau, Louise, 152. 
Levi, Rabbi Ben, 116. 
Lightfoot, John, 78, 256, 406. 
Limborch, Philip a, 122. 
Logic and religion, 267. 
Loyola Ignatius, 192. 
Lupton Arthur, 150. 
Luther Martin, 7, 227. 

Magnetism, 323, 424. 
Maimonides, Moses, 120, 236, 408. 
Man and God, 495. 
" and history, 483. 
44 historically bound, 107, 453. 
Man as a spirit, 37, 130, 170, 220, 262, 
268, 278, 282, 314, 324, 336, 
340, 401, 476. 
44 and the Spirit, 400, 428, 482. 
44 open to the Spirit, 437, 442. 
44 born of the universe, 314, 396, 

495. 
44 spiritually insphered, 423. 
Martyr, Justin, 122". 
Marvels of the present day, 162. 
Men and monkeys, 108. 
Mesmerism, 156, 297, 324, 326. 
Mill, James, 69, 451. 
Miracle, as a Scriptural word, 227. 
Miracles, 1, 8, 22, 38. 

44 ignorance as to, 2, 81, 93. 
44 various definitions of, 224. 
44 denned, 248. 
" and science, 74, 120, 264. 



Miracles, and human nature, 285. 
" and pneumatology, 309. 
44 and the creative spirit, 264. 
44 and the Spirit, 283. 
44 as signs, 245, 248, 280, 283. 
44 and speculative science, 

308. 
44 and nature, 42. 
' 4 and the material universe, 

290. 
44 and the spiritual universe, 

290. 
14 and doctrine. 71, 75, 235. 
44 and character, 139, 231. 
44 and the Scriptures, 229, 

237. 
44 and their significance, 75, 

238, 251, 279, 449. 
44 the light of, 260. 
44 religiously important, 292. 
44 and the believing spirit, 90. 
44 wavs of believing in, 104. 
44 and Christian belief, 36. 
" and belief, 22, 106, 239, 278. 
" not unnatural, 282, 286, 

324, 331. 
44 why not more common, 

93, 295, 494. 
44 conditional, 240. 

44 and all time, 496. 
44 and the present dav, 162, 

260, 449. / 

44 not for evervbodj r , 164. ' 

44 modern, 162, 298, 324, 331. 
" as witnessed by seraphs, 

46. 
44 and a spiritual world, 95. 
" like prophecies, 280. 
More, Henry, 168, 201. 
Mori, Maria. 153. 

Moses hearing the Lord command, 
343. 

Nature, the laws of, 46, 73, 306. 

" " a figure of speech, 

49, 74. 
Neander, Augustus, 20, 197, 399. 
Neri, St. Philip, 298. 
Newman, 161. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 44, 54, 247. 

Oracles, ancient, 334. 
Origen, 319. 

Owen, John, 82. 

Palestine at the birth of Jesus, 382. 
Paul, St., 140, 413, 487. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



511 



Pausanias, 145. 

Pentecost, 482. 
Philip the Apostle, 486. 
Pius the Seventh, 193. 
Plato, 164, 316, 319, 332, 387. 
Plotinus, 13, 26, 158, 212, 425. 
Pneumatology and the Scriptures, 
110. 
44 illustrated, 16, 89, 95, 

127, 173, 206, 233, 243, 265, 
269, 276, 288, 309, 321, 324, 
367, 377, 385, 396, 423, 438, 
454, 455, 468, 493. 
Powell, Baden, 56. 
Progress, law of, 366. 
Prophecy, 383, 389, 408. 

" " and human nature, 316. 
Prophets, who were, 94, 131, 343. 
14 how commissioned, 343. 
44 social position of, 346. 

44 and priests, 347. 

" false, 112, 232, 351. 

Prospects, spiritual, 243, 270, 333,497. 
Pusey, E. B., 155. 

Receptiveness, spiritual, 329. 
Renan, J. E., 4, 85, 94. 
Resurrection of Jesus, 286, 252. 
Revelation, and primitive germ as 
to, 333. 
44 made through angels, 

120. 
44 and new truths, 316. 
44 a primal truth as to, 376. 
44 the philosophy of, 44, 123, 
201, 218, 272, 290, 343, 
373, 403, 417, 425, 430, 
458. 
Revivals, religious, 202, 220. 
Rome, ancient, 147. 

Saul and Samuel, 136. 
Schiller, J. C. F., 171. 
Science and Miracles, 38, 120, 271, 
306, 402. 

" and its limitations, 200, 291, 
301. 

" and human nature, 282. 

" and spirit, 213, 268, 283, 475. 

" and religion, 283, 301, 337, 
428. 

44 obsolete forms of, 177. 

u and electricity, 62. 
Scott, Dr. Walter, 194. 
Sheol or Hades, 115. 
Shrewsbury, the Earl of, 153, 159. 
Smith, John, 440. 



Souls differ, 320. 
Spirit, the, 30, 400. 

" " variously described, 420. 
" " and the Old Testament, 

340. 
" " and the Scriptures, 450. 
" " as a theocracy, 360, 392. 
44 " and the prophets thereof, 

131. 
" . " and its course, 479. 
" " and its effects, 356. 
" " in action, 27. 
" " and its instruments, 347, 

498. 
" " various manifestations 

of, 320, 420, 489. 
" " gifts of, 320, 496. 
14 " experiences of, 321, 330. 
u 4I and its teaching, 319. 
44 " as inspiration, 356, 379. 
44 " and receptiveness, 320. 
44 " and conviction, 474. 
44 " as between man and 

God, 494. 
44 " and the soul, 322, 392- 
44 " and all men, 379. 
44 " men differenced by, 443. 
44 " and human individual- 
ity, 354, 376. 
" " grieving, 330. 
44 44 living by, 182, 415. 
44 44 being in, 413. 
44 44 and miracles, 283. 
44 4 ' and logic, 319. 
44 44 the original of the 

church, 484. 
44 44 and the Future, 498. 
Spirit, 12, 18, 30, 40. 
44 and matter, 166. 
44 and science, 183. 
44 descent by, 380. 
44 as a word degraded, 103, 315. 
Spirits and inspiration, 407. 
44 familiar, 113. 
44 unclean, 117, 175, 198, 293, 
296, 406, 446. 
Spiritual states, 166. 

44 world about us, 182. 
Spiritualism, 63, 184, 203, 299, 369, 
425, 500. 
44 and the Old Testament, 

369. 
44 and the Scriptures, 209. 

44 the phenomena of, 160, 

206, 211. 
44 an estimate of, 208, 216, 

44 significance of, 212, 218. 



512 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



Spirit-rappings, 199, 203, 217. 

" and science, 61. 

" and Baden Powell, 

63. 
Stanley, Arthur P., 76. 
Stigmata, on the, 158. 
Stilling, Heinrich, 88. 
Strauss, D. T., 10, 53. 
Suetonius, 387. 
Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 89. 

Tacitus, 387. 

Telegraph, electric, 271, 483. 

Tertullian, 214. 

Testament, the Old, 340, 368. 

" " as a history of 

the Spirit, 363. 
" " its own evi- 

dence, 368. 
" " and the New, 

311, 375, 382. 
Theocracy, the Jewish, 342, 352, 

392, 446. 
Theology, modern, 22, 43, 92, 96, 
112, 124, 175, 191, 193, 197, 
200, 208, 231, 255, 293, 300, 
305, 315, 339, 369, 444. 
Theology, modern, state of, 198. 
" ' " externality of, 
315. 



Theology, modern, weakness of, 96, 
191. 
" " and superstition, 

162, 208. 
" " confounded by 

Spiritualism, 190. 
Time, fulness of the, 388, 395, 456. 

" spirit of the, 265. 
Tongues, the gift of, 408. 
Trance, the state of, 413. 
Transfiguration, the, 411, 455. 

" " was in vision, 

412. 

Unbelief, modern, 2, 16, 19, 23, 36. 
Universe, the, not a machine, 55. 

" " and man, 264. 

" " as to men and spirits, 

294. 

" " as to miracles, 280. 

Vespasian, 447. 
Virgil, 389. 

Vision, the state of, 122, 310, 413. 
" instances of, 479. 

Warning from a bird, 182. 
Wesley, John, 184. 
Word of the Lord, 124, 312, 342, 367, 
378, 400. 



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